The Cuckoo Child (34 page)
He glanced towards the parapet of the bridge and sighed heavily. Despite his certainty, he would have to climb over the side wall and make his way down to the line just to check that the girl was truly dead and that there was nothing on her which would identify her.
By now, his breathing had steadied and he was about to walk across to the side wall when he saw someone approaching. He hesitated, and was glad he had done so when a voice hailed him. ‘Evenin’, Ollie! Not that it is evening, since it’s well past midnight. What are you doin’ in this neck of the woods?’
It was Constable Barrow, a man whom Ollie knew only slightly since he was much younger and patrolled a different part of the city. He was not in uniform but sauntered along with a checked cap on the back of his head and his fawn jacket unbuttoned.
‘Mornin’, Barrow, then,’ Ollie said with all the joviality he could muster, and fell into step beside the other man. He creased his big comedian’s face into a friendly grin, though he was secretly furious. Damned interferin’ fellow! When the body was discovered next day, and the report went round the stations, it might occur to young Barrow that he had seen Constable McNamara loitering near the railway bridge, a good march from his own patch. What was more, though he was certain the girl must have been killed by the approaching train, he would have felt happier had he been able to examine the body. But it was too late now; it would look very odd indeed if he made some excuse and turned back towards the bridge. So he continued to stroll along beside the other policeman, chatting idly.
But there was still the problem to tackle of why he was here at all and Constable Barrow was looking at him enquiringly. Ollie’s mind raced, then came up with a perfect solution. ‘I’m in this neck o’ the woods because I’ve been takin’ an injured person into the infirmary,’ he said glibly. ‘Then I fancied a fag afore goin’ back where I belong.’ He fished a squashed packet of Woodbines out of his tunic pocket. ‘Fancy joinin’ me? Only, like a fool, I forgot me matches, so unless you’ve gorra light on you . . .’
As he spoke, Constable Barrow produced matches and lighted both cigarettes.
‘What are you doing down this way, Barrow?’ Ollie asked, as the two men crossed Dansie Street. ‘I disremember where you live an’ you plainly aren’t on duty.’
The younger man laughed. ‘I been round at my young lady’s place. Earlier, we went to the flickers, then back to her house for a cup of tea and a sandwich. Usually, I catch a tram – I lodge on Mere Lane, which is a fair walk – but there’s no trams this late.’
‘You’re right there, but one thing being a policeman does teach you, and that’s how to walk distances,’ Ollie said. ‘Grand night, ain’t it?’
The two men carried on, chatting comfortably, and by the time they parted Ollie was truly hopeful that young Barrow would never connect the fat and friendly policeman with the mysterious death of Emma Grieves when she was found next day, crushed and broken, near the Brownlow Street bridge. After all, there were half a dozen bridges across the railway line in this part of the city, all pretty well identical; he should be safe enough.
Emma regained consciousness slowly and stupidly. She was lying on something horribly uncomfortable and was incapable of any sort of movement. Her eyelids felt so heavy she simply could not raise them, but gradually she was beginning to realise that she was in a moving vehicle of some description because every now and again her bed of nails seemed to shift and a whole new set of pains attacked her. Emma wanted to groan, to cry out, to beg for help, but as yet that was beyond her. Her head was thumping even more badly than the rest of her and, for the first time, a vague memory came into her mind. There had been a man, a cruel and vicious man, who had hit her with some sort of stick, or had it been the butt of a gun? She had been talking to him, had thought him pleasant enough . . . but at this point her thoughts broke down; her mind could take her no further. The immediate present was too horrible to allow her to consider the past. Some instinct told her to lie as still as she could and to wait until her eyes would open. Then she could look around her and perhaps she would know how she had come to be here.
The next thing she registered was the simply appalling noise and the realisation that most of it came from an engine of some description. Was she in a large lorry carrying stones to and from some quarry or other? But then she heard a whistle, so shrill that, had she had the strength, she would have clapped both hands over her ears, and with the whistle came realisation. It was a train’s whistle, which meant she had somehow got aboard a train. Cautiously, without opening her eyes, she put out a wavering hand and felt the nails nearest her, which were not nails at all, but extremely sharp and unpleasant stones. Further investigations with one fumbling hand told her that these were very strange stones indeed. Her foggy mind recognised the shape, yet she could not . . . it was coal! And at once her eyelids jerked open. She was still not capable of any movement other than the slight one of her hand, but she saw the dark and star-speckled sky above her, with clouds scudding across it. So it was still night, then. She had no idea at what time the man had hit her over the head, but she knew it had been dark and common sense informed her that it must have been fairly late, or someone would surely have prevented the man from so mistreating her? But what had she done to deserve such treatment and how had she come to be lying in a truck full of coal? Even as the thought entered her head, the train ran over some points and Emma’s head jerked on its uncomfortable pillow. Pain arrowed through her and the stars and the dark sky were blotted out by a deeper darkness.
The next time Emma regained consciousness, she tried to sit up and managed to do so for several moments before sinking back once more. She put a wavering hand weakly up to her face and was horrified to feel wet and sticky tracks running down from her forehead to her chin. Cautiously, her fingers continued to explore, then she snatched her hand away. It seemed she had received a wound on her brow which was still sluggishly bleeding. No wonder her head was throbbing, she thought, and then realised that there was a strong wind which caught at her hair when she sat up. Looking round her, she saw that the sides of the container in which she lay were clear of the coal for quite two or three feet, and with that realisation came another. She had somehow fallen, or been thrown, into the tender of a train, and whenever the coals shifted beneath her it was because the fireman was shovelling fuel into the engine’s hungry maw.
But how the devil had she got here? She was still too weak to sit up for long but she did shift her position slightly and saw, with complete surprise, that she was wearing trousers. Trousers? Why on earth should she be wearing trousers? Her hand crept out, feebly checking the rest of her clothing. She felt a ragged jacket, obviously a man’s, and a shirt, collarless, the top two buttons undone. She was disguised, then, as a ragged man, though a hand put gingerly to her head informed her that the checked cap she had worn was no longer in place. Checked cap! And on the thought, she remembered. She had dressed as a man before; she could recall it distinctly. Her grandfather had not been a large man and she had borrowed the clothes he wore when he went fishing or birdwatching. He would not mind; he was generous and she must have had a good reason for donning the disguise otherwise Grandpa would never have consented . . . and this thought brought others flooding in. Her grandfather was dead! Her dear grandfather, who had brought her up, paid for her schooling, sent her to college to perfect the skills he himself had taught her, had died and she had inherited the shop. No, he had not died, he had been cruelly murdered, and it had been the murderer who had stolen something precious from her and had attacked her with his . . . his . . .
But the effort of such concentrated thinking in her present horribly battered state was too much for Emma. Her heavy, heavy lids closed slowly over her eyes and she lapsed into the coma-like state from which she had so recently emerged.
It might have been hours, or perhaps only minutes, later that Emma came to herself for the third time to find that the train was no longer moving. Cautiously, she tried to sit up, and immediately every bone in her body screamed a protest whilst her head flooded out a drumbeat of pain and her many bruises ached alarmingly. But her brain, at least, was clear, and she was beginning to remember how she and Constable McNamara had walked across the city together in order to visit a magistrate, though she did not recall his name. Emma frowned. Constable McNamara; she had always liked and trusted him so why, when she thought about him now, did her spine prickle with fear and a feeling of disgust well up within her? They had been standing by the tall stone wall which hid the railway lines from passers-by; she had heard the rumble of a train approaching, had glanced towards the sound, as one would, and then . . . she had got it! The constable had called himself Ollie McNamara . . . Ollie, the man who had murdered her grandfather . . . as he had swung his truncheon at her unprotected head. Wincing at the memory, she tried to work out once more exactly what had happened, whilst clambering painfully to her knees so that she could peer over the side of the engine’s tender. She saw that the train was standing in a very large and almost empty station. Nearby, a nameplate announced that the train had reached Crewe. Emma’s mind gave a jerk. If this train had left Liverpool at midnight, then it was the London sleeper and unless she disembarked pretty promptly she would find herself carried on to Euston. Her mind still refused to recall everything that had happened that evening, but she knew she simply had to get back to Liverpool or something dreadful would happen. She hauled herself to her feet and swung, with great difficulty, over the side of the tender. The platform seemed a long way below and, for a moment, she hesitated, feeling her head begin to swim. Then she gritted her teeth and told herself that this was no time to baulk at a little jump. She clung to the side for a moment longer, then launched herself at the platform.
Landing was almost as painful as she had anticipated and she was unable to prevent herself from slumping forward on to her knees. She allowed herself a moment to recover, then clambered, dizzily, to her feet and looked along the platform. At the rear of the train, porters, she presumed, were hefting mail bags from huge trolleys into the guard’s van. Emma began to stumble towards them and, as she did so, tried to rehearse what she would say. A murder attempt, which had ended in her being thrown, presumably, from the railway bridge. The knowledge which she now possessed and which must be passed on to the police. Oh, and the necklace! Suddenly, she remembered the emerald necklace, the way it had glinted in the gas light, the way Ollie’s hand had shot out to snatch it from her . . . and she had told him that Dot was involved! Oh God, oh God, after all their care, she had let Dot’s name escape her and he had known at once whom she meant.
The little redheaded gal
, he had said. And that had been hours ago, hours and hours.
The little redheaded gal
, he had said. And that had been hours ago, hours and hours.
At the other end of the platform, one of the porters raised his head, saw her and pointed. Emma broke into a lurching, stumbling run towards them, then saw that their figures were dwindling and that in front of her yawned a great, black pit. She knew she must jump it or she would never tell anyone her story. But even as she gathered herself together for the leap, she knew she would never make it. Weakness brought her to her knees as the blackness swallowed her up.
Dot slept well, though towards morning nightmares haunted her in which Mr McNamara somehow managed to learn who had been hiding in the dustbin and came after her, sometimes with a raised truncheon, at other times with a beefy hand planted between her shoulder blades, ready to push her under the nearest tram. She had intended to go round to Church Street as soon as the shop opened, but when she woke she decided that this was not a good idea. She guessed, by the amount of light showing through the thin kitchen curtains, that it was probably no more than seven o’clock; by eight, the family would be stirring and her aunt would be most upset, not to say annoyed, if her little helper disappeared without so much as assisting her to dress.
It was a shame to wake Emma early but Dot could see no alternative. She got up quietly and pulled the kitchen curtains a little apart so that she could see the clock, which read half past six. Dot glanced at her sofa bed, a trifle wistfully, then scolded herself. The one thing which had stopped Nick and Emma from going to the authorities was that they did not know the identity of Mr Rathbone’s partner – he who had actually murdered old Mr Grieves – but now that Dot herself knew, the sooner she passed this knowledge on, the better.
Accordingly, she sloshed water into the washing-up bowl and had a quick wash, then dressed and tiptoed across the kitchen and down the hall. Since Uncle Rupert had come in sober the previous evening, the front door was locked and bolted, seldom the case when he had had a few bevvies too many. It was rather annoying because bolts are not easy to draw back soundlessly. But Dot took her time and managed the task without any squeaks or clicks. She let herself out into the deliciously cool early morning and closed the door behind her with infinite care. Then she set off in the direction of Church Street.
It was rather nice walking along the dew-wet pavements and seeing so few people about; a milkman on his round, factory workers heading for their places of employment and a few delivery vans made the streets seem almost empty when one considered how crowded they would be in a mere hour or so. She slid into the jigger which led to the back entrance of Emma’s shop. She had been this way several times now and was surprised to find the back gate ajar. She did not think it was ever locked, but she knew that there was a bolt which Emma slid across, saying that it was enough to stop strangers from entering her premises, though anyone who knew about the bolt simply put a hand over the gate and slid it back.
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