The Cuckoo Child (5 page)
‘We can make sure she’s no threat to us,’ Ollie said. He spoke quietly and unemphatically but, on the opposite side of the table, the butcher gave a little shiver. He was not fond of children and had few scruples, but something in his companion’s face made him say hastily: ‘No need to act violent, Ollie; a threat’ll do the trick. We don’t want two murders on our hands, do we?’
Ollie’s eyes opened in mock astonishment. ‘Me? Harm a kid?’ he said. ‘No such thing. When I find her, I’ll put the fear o’ God into her so she’ll hand back the necklace and never say a word to a soul about it.’
‘Hand it back? But we’ve agreed it’s red hot, far too dangerous . . .’
Ollie gave a derisive snort. ‘Have your brains gone beggin’, Archie?’ he demanded. ‘That necklace is the only proof the kid’s got, if she wants to go to the authorities. Otherwise, she’s just a kid, lyin’ her head off to get attention, an’ all you’ll have to do is ask what the devil would you be doin’ chuckin’ a necklace worth a deal o’ money into your own rubbish bin. No, without the necklace, she’s no sort of proof.’
The butcher sighed, stretched and stood up. He walked over to the fire and pulled the kettle over the flame, then spoke over his shoulder to his companion. ‘Gawd, I wish we’d destroyed the necklace then and there, or hung on to it ourselves, for that matter. Still, no good crying over spilt milk. Come to think of it, old pal, who’s she likely to tell? She didn’t have no right in that bin an’ she didn’t have no right to take the necklace, either. I don’t reckon we’ve much to worry about in that direction, an’ once we’ve got rid of the other stuff and divvied up the money between us we can put the whole business behind us an’ forget it.’
Ollie nodded slowly, and presently accepted a cup of tea and began to talk of how they would travel down to London and visit the fence together. When he left, he had agreed that the child was no threat, even agreed not to bother to keep his eyes peeled for her, but in his small, calculating mind there was one thought which he had not shared with the butcher. His memory of the conversation which had taken place near the bins was a lot sharper than Archie Rathbone’s. He had told Archie that no one knew which of them had struck Mr Grieves down, but if the kid had been hiding in the bin she would have heard Archie telling him that he had not needed to hit the old man a second time. She was the only person who knew he was the murderer and could clear Archie of the worst crime, whilst landing himself in it up to the neck. So it stood to reason that she would have to be silenced and he did not mean to do it just by threats. In a big city like Liverpool, swarming with kids, it would be a simple enough matter to get rid of her once he’d found her. The river, the canal, the railway, the roads, were all dangerous places; barefoot urchins were injured or killed often enough for one more to be unremarkable. Just let me find her and then we can get on with planning another job, Ollie told himself. And next time, he’d make certain his face was covered before he entered anyone else’s premises; because he’d not bothered to pull up his muffler he had had to hit Mr Grieves a second time since he had had no desire to be identified by the old man.
So now, the only thing he had left to do was find the kid and then get rid of her; knowing kids as he did, he was pretty sure she would have hidden the necklace, but should it come to light it might even be a good thing since it would cast suspicion in the wrong direction. Provided the girl was dead, that was.
For several days after the robbery, Dot lay low. She had thought herself safe enough once she had hidden the necklace, but it had gradually been borne in upon her that Mr Rathbone would expect to find the necklace in the bin when he went to destroy it next morning. He might be all sorts of fool but he must realise, as she did, that stones and metal were unlikely to disappear completely, even when set on fire. Furthermore, she had an uneasy feeling whenever she remembered the weaselly man on Heyworth Street who had tried to bar her way as she shot out of the alley. Suppose, just suppose, that the weaselly man had been Ollie? He had called her a thief but there was nothing to steal in the jigger . . . unless you happened to know that an emerald necklace nestled in one of old Rathbone’s dustbins, waiting to be destroyed, or fetched out secretly when Mr Rathbone’s back was turned, to be tucked away until everyone had forgotten the robbery, when Weasel Face would be able to dispose of it at his leisure.
It would have been nice to tell herself that Ollie – if indeed it was Ollie – had not had time to notice her during their brief encounter, but the truth was they had stared into each other’s faces for a split second and the weaselly man’s countenance – narrowed, greenish eyes, a long thin, pink nose, a mouth fringed with raggedy teeth, and sandy hair protruding beneath a filthy old tweed cap – was burned on Dot’s brain, so she supposed that the same could be said in reverse.
Dot remembered, however, that someone had once said, ‘Know thine enemy,’ and this thought was a real comfort. She had dreaded being pursued by a faceless thief but now, at least, she did indeed know her enemy, and could make sure that she was never alone either with Mr Rathbone or with the weaselly Ollie.
Over the course of the next few weeks, she was careful, very careful indeed. She kept away from crowded places, made sure she went to and from school with a gaggle of other children, and actually used a couple of rubber bands, which the postman had dropped on the pavement, to plait her hair into a couple of pigtails. She didn’t actually do the plaiting herself, but got Fizz’s elder sister, Laura, to do it for her, and was delighted when her teacher complimented her on her tidy appearance and actually gave her a small comb, because Laura had made her parting by guess, and Miss Unsworth showed Dot how much nicer a straight middle parting looked.
Of course her cousins were as delighted with her plaits as Miss Unsworth; they pulled them, tied them into knots, attached them to the back of the kitchen chair whilst she was eating her tea, and generally used them as a means of irritating her. Dot, however, knew that the boys would grow accustomed to the pigtails, so kept doggedly on. At her teacher’s suggestion, she actually held her head under the pump at the end of the yard, and scrubbed away at her hair with a bar of carbolic soap, lightening her locks to a pleasing shade of reddish gold and, she hoped, changing her appearance even more.
The worst part of it was that she still dared tell no one. Fizz was her best friend, but there was no denying he was a gossip. He would not mean to tell, would promise silence to the grave, but then he would forget, mention to his mother, or one of his school friends, that Dot knew more about the robbery than she was letting on, and the fat would be truly in the fire. She had other friends – Irene Boycott, Lizzie Moffat, who lived two doors further along the court, and Phyllis Watson, whose mother owned a corner shop on Heyworth Street. Mrs Watson was a pleasant, easy-going woman, who would never make much money since she allowed customers to buy from her on tick, but Dot was not concerned with that side of the Watsons’ life. Mrs Watson let her and Phyllis play in the big storeroom behind the shop, leaping like goats from the sack of rice to the sack of lentils, up on to the box of margarine and down round the boxes of dried fruit. Of course, they were under promise not to spoil – or devour – Mrs Watson’s stock, but it was a grand place to play, especially on rainy days when Aunt Myrtle turned her out, regardless, and there was no school. However, fond though she was of all three girls, she could not possibly have admitted to them that she had hidden in a dustbin, let alone eavesdropped on a conversation between two grown men. They would have been shocked and, even if they had not told their own parents, would have insisted that she go to the police. No, she must keep the secret locked in her own heart.
It had been March when the robbery took place, and it was getting on towards the end of May when something extremely worrying occurred, and made Dot long, even more fervently, for a confidante. It was the Saturday morning of the Whit weekend and Fizz’s mam had given him a pile of neatly ironed shirts in a large wicker basket, and his fare on the underground railway to Birkenhead. There was a boys’ school which sent a great number of shirts to a laundry on Scotland Road, where Fizz’s mam worked from time to time. But, apparently, two of the laundry women had fallen sick, and the delivery boy had gone down with the same malaise, so the laundry proprietor had given Mrs Fitzwilliam the shirts and asked her to do them herself, to deliver them and, of course, to keep the money. Mrs Fitzwilliam had been delighted, going along to the communal washhouse, washing and drying the shirts, starching the collars until Dot thought, ruefully, that they were liable to cut the throats of any pupils wearing them, and then packing them into the basket and giving them to Fizz to deliver. ‘They’ll pay you six and ninepence, and you can keep the ninepence for deliverin’ them,’ she had said instructively. ‘I dare say young Dot will want to keep you company, so I’ll give you her fare an’ all. Then, if you want to go out on a spree Sat’day afternoon, you’ll have a bit o’ money to spend.’
‘But we’ll have missed the penny rush,’ Fizz had said, rather dismally; he loved his weekly visit to the picture house, knew the names of all the film stars and intended, he told Dot, to be a cowboy when he grew up.
‘But cowboys have to be terrible handsome and – and they all have kinda dangerous faces,’ Dot had observed. She had not wanted to insult her friend but his round, rosy, rather flat face, his snub nose and his spiky, straw-coloured hair were unlikely to change greatly, she thought, in the years to come. ‘Besides, you can’t ride a horse or whirl one of them ropy things and catch a cow or – or use a six-shooter, even.’
Fizz had turned on her a look which had mingled contempt and pity. ‘They teaches you to ride a horse and shoot straight, an’ stuff like that,’ he had said loftily. ‘Don’t you know nothin’, Dot McCann?’
Dot, realising that she had offended her pal, had said meekly that she was sorry for doubting him and had hastily changed the subject, but now, as they walked towards the Central underground station she was unable to prevent herself from giving a little skip of excitement. ‘Since we’re going over the water, we might as well go a bit further and take ourselves off to New Brighton for the rest of the day,’ she suggested hopefully. ‘I know you hate missin’ the Sat’day rush, but do you know what film’s showing? It’s
Little Miss Deputy
, what’s all about a cow
girl
, not a cowboy, starring that Texas Guinan, the one you thought was such a twerp.’
Little Miss Deputy
, what’s all about a cow
girl
, not a cowboy, starring that Texas Guinan, the one you thought was such a twerp.’
Fizz’s darkening brow lightened considerably. ‘Oh, it’s
her
, is it?’ he said cheerfully. ‘To my mind, there ain’t no such thing as a cowgirl – girls can be cows, an’ I know several of them who are, but a woman dressed up in a Stetson and chaps, and jangly boots, is going agin nature, if you ask me.’
her
, is it?’ he said cheerfully. ‘To my mind, there ain’t no such thing as a cowgirl – girls can be cows, an’ I know several of them who are, but a woman dressed up in a Stetson and chaps, and jangly boots, is going agin nature, if you ask me.’
It would have been fun to disagree, to tell Fizz that Texas rode, shot and lassoed better than any man, but Dot realised that she had best hold her tongue, especially if she wanted to go to New Brighton and to have a share in Fizz’s ninepence. So, instead, she talked about school, Aunt Myrtle’s latest fight with Uncle Rupert and the fact that Fizz’s sister, Laura, had just got a job at the dairy on Heyworth Street. This passed the time pleasantly until they dived down the steps of the underground station and found themselves immediately caught up in a large crowd, many of whom seemed to be in a holiday mood. Dot guessed that because it was bright and sunny she was not the only one who had thought of the delights of New Brighton; why, some of these people might be going over for a weekend at the seaside, staying in one of the many boarding houses which offered cheap accommodation to families eager to escape from hot and grimy Liverpool streets.
A train came roaring into the station and the crowd surged forward, even though they must know that they would be unable to board the train until those passengers waiting to alight had done so. She was shouting into Fizz’s ear that she doubted if they would be able to get this particular train when the doors opened and people began to descend. Others immediately pressed forward and Dot and Fizz got separated, though by the time the train drew out they were right at the front of the crowd and pretty sure of catching the next one.
Dot guessed that Fizz’s laundry basket had come in useful to barge people aside, but also thought that it might impede his getting on the train. She signalled to him over the intervening heads that she would try to join him and was inching towards him on the very edge of the platform when she heard the roar and felt the tidal wave of hot air as the engine of the next train emerged from the tunnel. Prudently, she moved back from the edge, and even as she did so felt a sharp push between her shoulder blades and staggered forward again. Had it not been for the man standing beside her, she might well have fallen on to the line, but he shot out an arm and grabbed her, saying chidingly, in a strong Lancashire accent: ‘Hold up, lass! Ee by gum, how they do shove to be first on t’ train. You want to be careful when you’re in the front. Someone give you a push, did they? Aye, I felt it meself. That’s why I grabbed a hold of you.’
Dot, feeling quite weak with shock, mumbled her thanks and, as she got into the train, turned to look behind her, though she knew that she was unlikely to be able to pick out whoever had pushed her – if indeed anyone had – in the motley crowd. Infuriatingly, there were at least three people now jostling aboard the train with ferrety faces and large caps, but Dot was pretty positive that none of them was Ollie. However, she was also pretty positive that Ollie was far too fly a character to hang around after committing an act of aggression. He would have got away immediately or would simply have moved smartly to his right or left, getting aboard the train through another doorway. For a moment, she hesitated, thinking it might be safer to fight her way off the train and simply go home, but then common sense reasserted itself.
If
she had been deliberately pushed – and she was by no means certain that this was the case – then it simply must have been Ollie because Mr Rathbone, she knew, would be in his shop, particularly on a Saturday morning, with all his customers hurrying in to buy their Sunday joints.
If
she had been deliberately pushed – and she was by no means certain that this was the case – then it simply must have been Ollie because Mr Rathbone, she knew, would be in his shop, particularly on a Saturday morning, with all his customers hurrying in to buy their Sunday joints.
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