The Cuckoo Child (4 page)
Not that it was her fault that her plan had gone awry. She and Irene had burst into the kitchen, Irene clamouring for something to eat because it was so cold that she was starving, just about. Mrs Boycott, cooking Welsh cakes on the griddle, had promised them a good plateful presently, adding that there would only be the two of them to devour the lot since Mr Boycott, who was an accountant in a big block of offices on Exchange Flags, was working on the end of year figures and would not be home till ten or twelve that night.
Dot’s heart had sunk, though on the spur of the moment she had suggested that she and Irene might pop along to the newsagent’s and buy Mr Boycott a copy of the
Echo
, since otherwise he might miss his evening read. Mrs Boycott had thanked her, but shaken her head. ‘Mr Boycott will send the office boy out for a copy, I don’t doubt,’ she had said. ‘Knowing he was going to work late, he took a pile of sandwiches, an apple, some of my fruit cake, and a flask of hot tea to the office with him.’ She had chuckled, benignly. ‘And you know Mr Boycott; he can’t enjoy a meal without he’s reading his paper, so he’ll make sure of that, whatever else he may miss out on.’
Echo
, since otherwise he might miss his evening read. Mrs Boycott had thanked her, but shaken her head. ‘Mr Boycott will send the office boy out for a copy, I don’t doubt,’ she had said. ‘Knowing he was going to work late, he took a pile of sandwiches, an apple, some of my fruit cake, and a flask of hot tea to the office with him.’ She had chuckled, benignly. ‘And you know Mr Boycott; he can’t enjoy a meal without he’s reading his paper, so he’ll make sure of that, whatever else he may miss out on.’
So Dot’s lovely plan had crumbled to dust and, though she enjoyed the delicious Welsh cakes and the glass of hot milk which accompanied them, she was quick to suggest that she and Irene might like to play out. Dusk comes early in March and Mrs Boycott looked a little doubtful but Irene, who had a brand new skipping rope, added her pleas to her friend’s, and very soon the two girls were strolling along, Irene chatting brightly and twirling her skipping rope whilst Dot kept her eyes peeled for a newsboy. She found one at last but, unfortunately, he was not a boy she knew, which made it a little awkward to ask a favour. However, by now Dot’s curiosity was stronger than her fear of a rebuff so she told Irene to skip on to the end of the road whilst she approached the boy, who was sitting on a low wall by a tram stop, looking bored.
‘’Scuse me,’ Dot said politely, ‘can I have a look at the front page of the
Echo
? I can’t buy one – no pennies – but there’s a bit I’d like to just glance over, if you wouldn’t mind.’
Echo
? I can’t buy one – no pennies – but there’s a bit I’d like to just glance over, if you wouldn’t mind.’
The boy looked her up and down. ‘I’m
sellin
’ papers, not givin’ ‘em away,’ he said. ‘Go an’ get your mam to hand out some money.’
sellin
’ papers, not givin’ ‘em away,’ he said. ‘Go an’ get your mam to hand out some money.’
‘My mam’s dead; I live with me aunt and me cousins,’ Dot said, trying to sound pathetic. ‘There ain’t no money left for things like newspapers after me aunt’s bought the food. Anyhow, I don’t want to take the paper away. I won’t even have to touch it. If you was to spread it out on your knee – just the front page – then I could tell whether the bit I want to read is on it or not.’
The boy still looked unconvinced. ‘Yeah, I dare say, but if everyone axed to have a free look at the paper, how many d’you think I’d sell? No, girl, if you can’t afford to buy one, wait till tomorrer, when they’ll be wrapping up chips or chucked down in the gutter, for anyone to read.’
Dot heard the note of finality in his voice and began to turn away, then turned back. ‘Suppose – suppose I swear on the Bible to come back here tomorrow and give you a ha’penny if you’ll let me look at the front page right now?’ she enquired hopefully. ‘You’ll get your money, honest to God you will. I’ve – I’ve gorra few pence hid away but by the time I’ve gone back to Lavender Court and rooted around in me secret hidin’ place it’ll be tomorrer. An’ if one of me cousins sees me, then that’s me secret hidin’ place gone up the spout.’ She put all her pleading into the last remark, despite knowing that she had no money hidden anywhere. But a ha’penny was easy enough to earn, she told herself righteously. If the boy were content to wait until the following day, she could certainly give him the ha’penny she had mentioned.
But the boy was looking at her with more interest. ‘Lavender Court?’ he said slowly. ‘I’ve gorra pal what lives in Lavender Court, Lionel Brewster. D’you know ’im?’
‘He’s my cousin. After my mam and dad died, his mam took me in; she’s me Aunt Myrtle, what I just telled you about.’
The boy grinned. ‘Well, I’m blowed. Ain’t it a small world?’ he marvelled. ‘So you’re Li’s cousin? Well, I’m ’is mate, Monkton – Monkey, they call me – so since you’re me pal’s cousin, I dare say I might let you have a read of one of me papers then. Only try not to muck it up, ’cos when the next tram comes along I’ll likely have some customers an’ they won’t buy damaged goods.’
‘Thanks ever so,’ Dot said eagerly. She took the newspaper with great care and spread it out on the wall, realising as soon as she looked at it that if she was to keep her secret she would have to be very careful indeed, for the entire front page was taken up by a jewel robbery at Mitchell & Grieves in Church Street. Fortunately, she was a quick reader and was able to assimilate the article in a very few moments before turning to the second page and pretending interest in a story about a boy who had rescued his friend after the younger child had slipped off the chains on the floating road and plunged up to his waist in Mersey mud, just as the tide was beginning to come in.
Dot studied the story with great diligence whilst carefully storing away in her memory every detail of the jewel robbery from the front page. According to the police, old Mr Grieves always worked late in the shop on a Thursday night, though he was not then open for business. Apparently, he was a man who did everything by the book and it was said that one could set one’s watch by him, so exactly did he stick to his familiar routine. The police had told the reporter that had this not been the case, the robbery would probably never have occurred, and warned the public that sticking to routine was a gift to any would-be thief. The report went on to say that Mr Grieves always shut the shop at five o’clock on a Thursday, began his various tasks, and at six o’clock on the dot went outside in order to examine his window as a customer might. Having checked, he would return to the shop and it must have been then that the thieves entered, probably close on his heels. Dot knew that this was wrong, however, from what she had overheard whilst in the butcher’s yard. The thieves had had a real shock when Mr Grieves had suddenly appeared from behind the counter; that must have been why Ollie had hit him with the stick he carried. But then the butcher had said Ollie had hit the old man a second time; surely there had been no need for that?
‘Did you see about the robbery, on the front page? I knows old Grieves; he’s a decent old feller. He often buys a paper off of me; never takes his change, neither. It’s too bad he were robbed, though there’s some as I wouldn’t mind robbing meself, from them posh shops down Church Street. Tell you what, turn to the stop press. If they’ve cotched the buggers, it’ll be in there.’
Dot did not know what he meant but watched as he flicked the pages over until he came to a column on the back page, printed in slightly darker ink and headed ‘Stop Press’. Together, the two of them read the headline ‘Jewel Robbery’ and then the paragraph beneath, which announced that Mr Grieves had died shortly after reaching hospital and the police were treating the case as murder.
The two young people stared at one another as Monkey carefully folded the paper into its original shape. ‘The poor old gent,’ he breathed. ‘I hopes they get the buggers, so I do. I can’t say I’m a pertickler friend of the scuffers – they’s too fond of tellin’ me to move on – but I’m with ’em all the way on this one. Just wish I’d been in Church Street last night, but I’ll have a chat to the feller who were and see if he noticed anything. You never know. It ain’t everyone what bothers to read the stop press.’
‘No-o-o, but it’ll be headlines by tomorrow,’ Dot said shrewdly. ‘Thanks ever so, Monkey; I’ll tell Li you done me a good turn, but I’d best be gerrin’ off now, or they won’t save me no tea.’
When the bell rang in his flat over the shop, Archie Rathbone went down the stairs at once, though he opened the door cautiously enough. He held a folded copy of the
Echo
in one hand and, the moment his companion entered the room, stabbed at the stop press announcement with one fat forefinger. ‘Have you seen that?’ he demanded. ‘Wharrever made you do it, Ollie? There weren’t no need to hit him twice, an’ now look where it’s got us . . . or you, rather.’
Echo
in one hand and, the moment his companion entered the room, stabbed at the stop press announcement with one fat forefinger. ‘Have you seen that?’ he demanded. ‘Wharrever made you do it, Ollie? There weren’t no need to hit him twice, an’ now look where it’s got us . . . or you, rather.’
The other man scowled. ‘It ain’t murder unless you meant to do it,’ he protested. ‘It were the excitement of the moment, and him popping up like a jack-in-the-box from behind that bleedin’ counter. But that ain’t why you axed me to call round, were it? Well, stands to reason it couldn’t ha’ been, ’cos the paper weren’t out when I saw you earlier.’
Mr Rathbone sat down heavily at the table. ‘No, it weren’t old Grieves’s death,’ he admitted. ‘It’s something really strange . . . I don’t understand it at all. ’Member me chuckin’ that necklace in the bin? Well, next mornin’ I went out there with the ash pan and looked into the bin to make sure before I burned the whole thing up, and it weren’t there.’ As he was speaking, he had stared steadily into the other man’s face and now he continued to do so, his round, rather bulging eyes accusatory. ‘Did you come back, Ollie? Did you come sneakin’ back down the jigger an’ climb over the wall and help yourself to that necklace? If you did, you’re flamin’ mad because the thing’s red hot and reckernisable. I telled you not to touch it, so what’ve you done with it, eh?’
The other man took a deep breath. ‘I don’t have a key to your back gate, Archie, and a man o’ my years don’t go scramblin’ over walls like a kid o’ nine or ten. If you ask me . . .’ He stopped speaking suddenly. ‘Oh my Gawd!’
‘What’s the matter? What’ve you remembered?’ the butcher said anxiously. ‘C’mon, out with it.’
The other hesitated for a long moment, and then he said, slowly: ‘I come past the end of the jigger . . . oh, about twenty minutes – maybe less – after you and I had said we’d best go our separate ways. And – and I glanced down it, the way you do, and there were someone talkin’ to a young girl. I didn’t see him at all really, but I saw her ’cos the feller were flashin’ a light in her face. Then, just as I turned away, she broke free of him and rushed past me as if the devil were on her tail. Mind, she weren’t carryin’ nothin’ but, if you ask me, I reckon that feller had caught her comin’ down the wall or gettin’ into mischief of some sort. An’ if the necklace is missin’ . . .’
The butcher’s breath hissed between his teeth. ‘If she’s got the necklace, we’re dead meat,’ he said gloomily. ‘Specially you, Ollie. It were you who killed the old feller.’
The other began to protest, then grinned. ‘Who’s to know that?’ he said derisively. ‘No one knows who struck the blow, ’cept you and meself, Archie Rathbone, an’ if you think you’d be believed above me if I said it were you who hit out . . . well, there’s a few round here who know your nasty temper and dead men tell no tales, so old Grievesy ain’t likely to speak in your defence.’ He leaned across the table and clapped the other man consolingly across the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry. Even if the kid did prig the necklace, she won’t attach no significance to it an’ kids don’t read the paper. We’ll be all right, old feller. The stuff’s hid away where no one won’t find it until we’ve got a chance to take it down to your pal, and once he’s got it there’ll be nothing to connect it with us.’
‘I thought you said we needn’t bother with a fence in London when there’s fellers a lot nearer home,’ Archie grumbled. ‘I reckon the stop press has changed your mind about it.’
Ollie shrugged. ‘Better safe ‘n sorry,’ he observed. ‘Besides, we’ll gerra higher price from a London fence, seein’ as the stuff has come a long way from his patch. I wonder where that kid will stow the necklace, though – if she took it, that is. If she leaves it lyin’ about where her mam or dad could find it, that could bring trouble round our ears. Now what sort o’ kid goes scrattin’ through dustbins at that hour of the night?’
Archie Rathbone stared down at his huge, meaty hands, then suddenly slammed them down so hard on the table that his companion jumped. ‘She were in the bleedin’ bin,’ he said. ‘Yes, I’m sure of it, she were in the bleedin’ bin. There weren’t much in it when I looked this mornin’ but what there was had been trampled flat, like. I had to poke around with a stick to make sure the necklace weren’t there. Why, the dirty, thievin’ little bitch! If I ever lay hands on her . . . what did she look like? How old were she? What were she wearin’?’
Ollie stared, then shrugged, a trifle helplessly. ‘She were just a dirty little kid, around nine or ten I’d say, but I reckon I’d know ’er again,’ he said. ‘She had long, tangly hair, sort of gingery I think it was, but apart from that I couldn’t describe her.’
The butcher snorted. ‘Fat lot of good that is, but if she were in the bin she won’t have seen nothing and voices is voices. I doubt she can identify either of us, particularly if she simply hopped into the first almost empty bin she come across, because I reckon one bin is very like another. Chances are she’d no idea whose bin it was when she got into it. Only, if she were searchin’ the bins for something to steal, why in God’s name did she climb inside it? Oh, Gawd, can it have been because she heard us talking? Only – only I don’t recall as we said much that would put us behind bars. I dare say we argified a bit about chuckin’ the necklace away, but I don’t reckon we used names, nor nothin’ like that.’
There was a silence while both men cast their minds back until Ollie suddenly spoke. ‘Hide ‘n’ seek,’ he said decidedly. ‘Slum kids have always played hide ‘n’ seek and she’d probably tried the odd shed, and a privy or two, before comin’ across an almost empty dustbin.’
The butcher’s face cleared. ‘Aye, you may be right. An’ if so, an’ she don’t know whose yard she were in, then she may not squeal on us,’ he said. ‘But I’d be a deal happier if we knew who she were so we could tell ’er to keep ’er trap shut or we’d shut it for ’er. You’re round and about a good deal, Ollie. Just you keep your eyes open, see if you can spot ’er. Once we know who she is an’ where she lives, we can . . . we can . . .’
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