A Step Too Far (26 page)

     A threat burned in Slater’s eyes.

     ‘You need be careful!’

     ‘Of what!’ Alice tossed her head. ‘Of being followed by a rat?’

     ‘No, of being bitten by one.’

     ‘Oh, you mean the way Freda Evans were bit; you’ll slip a couple of illegal ration books in my bag an’ get one of your cronies to tip the wink to the police? You wouldn’t do that yourself, not Jim Slater, he wouldn’t do the dirty on nobody – except to wipe it off himself. That’s what you did to Freda, you used her to keep your own stinkin’ self clean, well let me tell you the smell ain’t gone an’ ain’t never likely to. Folk hereabout hold their grudges for a very long time.’

     ‘Some of us don’t need to carry a grudge, some of us can settle ’em right away.’

     ‘Alice, Alice, leave it please!’

     The two girls had crossed the road to join them. Slater nodded. ‘Better do as Kate asks, take your nose outta what don’t concern you.’

     ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you Slater? It’d suit you fine for me to walk away an’ leave Kate to your pesterin’, but I don’t be no Judas, I don’t turn my back on a friend.’

     A bus trundling its way past the quartet shed little illumination: its headlights were shielded by caps that trained their light downward to prevent detection by aircraft. But it was enough to highlight the animalistic glare Slater turned on Alice.

     ‘Then don’t never turn it on an enemy, ’specially  . . .’

     ‘Especially
you
.’ Alice’s retort snapped sharply across the advice.

     ‘C’mon Alice, do like Kate says an’ leave it, he won’t go botherin’ her no more, not now we all knows about it.’

     Shrugging away Becky’s restraining hand, Alice stormed on. ‘I wouldn’t turn my back on a snake an’ though I ain’t never seen one I reckons Jim Slater comes close!’

     Katrin smiled to herself. This was going perfectly, but she must make it seem she deplored the whole thing. Inserting a deliberate tremble in her voice, Katrin said imploringly, ‘Alice, please, I think I have been mistaken, I apologise Mr Slater.’

     ‘Apologise!’ Alice’s scornful laugh echoed on the gathering night. ‘You don’t apologise to vermin, you gets rid of ’em!’

     Slater turned his glance to Katrin. ‘Folk try,’ he said, ‘but tryin’ don’t always succeed.’ He returned his stare to Alice and added, ‘
You
should bear that in mind, an’ remember this while you be about it, Jim Slater don’t take kindly to bein’ threatened, anybody daft enough to try it soon finds that out.’

     In a move too quick to be avoided, he grabbed the cotton of Alice’s coat and spun her around slamming her painfully against the wall of a small nut and bolts works.

     Dripping with venom, he snarled between barely parted lips, ‘Seems as ’ow the Butlers don’t ’ave brains enough to know when they’m bein’ warned so p’raps this will knock sense where there be none.’

     The hand not pressed against Alice’s throat slapped her brutally across her face.

‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry he slapped you. I never should have told you.’

     ‘Keepin’ silent wouldn’t get Slater off your back.’ Alice and Becky had insisted on accompanying Katrin to her door.

     ‘But now he will be on yours! Maybe next time it will be more than a slap! Oh Lord, Alice, I’m so frightened for you.’ It wasn’t true but it sounded good. That slap had been precisely what she had hoped would happen.

     ‘Ain’t no call for you to be frightened.’ Alice smiled despite her cut lip. ‘Slater be the one needs to be scared when mother sees this lip an’ the bruises on my back! Heaven an’ all its angels won’t be enough to save Jim Slater from a lampin’.’

     ‘No!’ Katrin kept up the pretence she had practised all the way to Hollies Drive. ‘Alice, your mother must not attempt  . . .’

     ‘Ain’t mother will be givin’ Slater a good hidin’, nor will it be no attempt, it’ll be done good an’ proper an’ not just wi’ a cut lip an’ a bruise or two to show for it.’

     Katrin caught the other girl’s hands in her own. ‘Nor your father, Alice he must not  . . .’

     Alice shook her head. ‘Won’t be ’im neither.’

     ‘Then who?’ Katrin forced back a laugh. She knew very well who, but ignorance was the dress best chosen to wear.

     ‘It’s our Jack be who! Dad taught his kids one creed, that should anybody lay a hand on one Butler they laid it on ’em all, an’ our Jack don’t be one to ’ave any man touch a hand to ’im; Jim Slater will be findin’ that to his cost, an’ knowin’ our Jack the price won’t come cheap.’

     Katrin stepped into the house calling one more goodnight, her laugh jubilant at the words ‘
The price won’t come cheap.
’

     Good. She slipped from her coat, hanging it in the hall. The more the odious Mr Slater was made to pay, the better she would like it.

     She had seen her opportunity and Alice Butler had allowed her to grasp it; brother Jack would deal with the problem of Jim Slater while Alice and Becky would continue to believe, mistakenly of course, that Katrin Hawley was a true friend.

     Letting her skirt fall to the floor, Katrin caught her reflection in the mirror. Smiling back at it for a moment, she crossed to the dressing table and took out the box, stroking a finger across the exquisitely soft lavender cloth.

     ‘Playing both ends against the middle is a rewarding game,’ she mused. ‘But then you would know that, wouldn’t you, mother? After all, you played it for years; but not with the skills your protégée has acquired.’

24

‘I meant to thank you for not telling mother about Saturdays, I’d intended to say it the other evenin’ but it went clean out of my mind, what with all that to-do with Jim Slater.’ Becky Turner smiled at Katrin as the three girls sat at the lunch table.

     Forcing a smile in return, Katrin thought that this must be like eating meals in prison, all seated in rows! But she would not have to endure it for much longer; Arthur Whitman had mentioned a new dining room saying it would be preferable for offering visitors hospitality instead of having tea and sandwiches in his office, and of course it would be available for staff use.

     ‘You’ve ’ad no more trouble from that direction, ’ave you?’ Alice asked.

     Katrin shook her head.

     ‘I doubt you ever will again, he won’t chance his hand a second time, not with Jack Butler wise to his game,’ Becky chipped in.

     ‘He . . . Alice’s brother . . . he didn’t  . . .’

     ‘Like hell he didn’t!’ Alice touched the tip of a finger to her partly healed lip. ‘Not even one of them Churchill tanks would ’ave had the stoppin’ of him once he clapped eyes on what that toerag Slater did to my face; our Jack went after him that same night.’

     Becky changed her mind about taking a further bite of her sandwich. ‘I can’t say as to how much be truth an’ how much be a bit of icin’ on the cake, but as I heard tell Jim Slater won’t be botherin’ nobody for a long time. I were hangin’ out the washin’ . . .’ glancing each side for possible eavesdroppers, Becky lowered her voice before going on, ‘and next door’s husband were standin’ at his pigeon loft talkin’ with a fella from higher up the street; I paid no heed until the name Slater were mentioned an’ . . . well, after what had ’appened between him an’ we three . . . well, it were only natural I would listen. Somebody’s belloiled ’im all right, got a fizzog a dog would be feared to lick  . . .’

     Katrin interpreted the local vernacular to determine Jim Slater had received a beating which had left his face severely cut and bruised.

     ‘. . . said it were every shade o’ the rainbow,’ Becky was continuing, ‘an’ judgin’ by the way ’e be a’ walkin’ seems ’is ribs be caved in.’

     ‘Did they say who ’ad done it?’

     ‘No.’ Becky pulled at the turban that covered the curlers fastening her hair. ‘But the fella doin’ the tellin’ said, there be a good few in Wednesbury would ’ave liked to do what were done an’ good luck to whoever it be; Slater be a crafty fossack, he be so crooked he couldn’t lie straight in a bed, not that he’ll be able to do that for a week or two even were he innocent as a babe.’

     ‘But if the man is so injured, will he not go to the police, have his attacker arrested?’ Katrin judged her moment.

     ‘Not Slater.’ Alice’s reply was confident. ‘He knows he’s only ’ad a taste of our Jack, same as he knows goin’ to the police will mean his bein’ treated to the full meal next time. No,’ she shook her head, ‘Jim Slater’s sly but he ain’t daft, the police won’t be hearin’ from him.’

     The police would not be hearing! Katrin bathed in satisfaction. Should every shell find its target with the efficiency of the bullet fired from Katrin Hawley’s arsenal then war might last no more than a week!

‘It’s all settled, the go-ahead for the new plant and the site ’as been approved, so Arthur Whitman informs me an’ Jacob.’

     ‘Should you be telling me this, dad, shouldn’t it be kept secret?’

     ‘What’d be the use o’ that?’ Isaac Eldon looked across at his daughter as she set a wicker basket of freshly dried laundry on the floor beside the living room table.

     ‘It’s just . . . well, you know what it can lead to when secrets are leaked.’

     Yes, he knew, he knew only too well. Silent with the thought, Isaac stared into the glow of the fire. Miriam knew the threat to this town had that spy managed to pass information regarding a supposed factory beneath the golf links, but she did not know fully the danger her son had been in, nor must she ever know. That had been the promise extracted by Philip Carson. The man had wrestled with his own conscience, fought in his own mind the rights and wrongs of breaking a promise. He had promised Reuben on that final visit he would say nothing to his mother – but he had not given any word regarding his grandfather.

     They had stood together in the shrouding darkness, the door of the house closed to prevent any chink of escaping light. He had felt the hesitation in that normally confident figure, an uncertainty Conroy had not shown on any previous visit to Cross Street. Had there been something else, something he was keeping back? The arrest? Had it after all been too late? Had something of what von Braun had wanted to divulge been already transmitted? All of these questions had raced in his mind as he had wished Conroy goodbye. The man had not turned immediately away, but stood, face upturned, playing a long look over a star-filled, frost-bitten sky; then he had said quietly, ‘
I wish to share something with you, Mr Eldon. It is not a professional thing to do but right now I think professionalism can take a back seat. Maybe
,’ he had turned his glance from the sky, ‘
seeing I, myself, am breaking a confidence I should not request you hold this conversation as private between us, yet that is what I am doing. I ask that you say nothing of it to your daughter, principally because Reuben desires I should not
.’

     ‘
Reuben! He’ll do nowt else so don’t ask, this time I puts my foot down!
’

     Isaac had felt rather than seen the quick smile, heard it when Conroy had spoken again.

     ‘
It is to do with your grandson, Mr Eldon, though not in the way you are thinking
.’ Conroy had paused, drawing on his gloves before resuming in that quiet voice, ‘
I gave Reuben a promise, a promise I am about to break
.’

     ‘
Mr Conroy
.’ Staring into the crimson glow, Isaac recalled his reply. ‘
It’s ever been my way to respect another man’s rights an’ I hold the same to my own. What you do wi’ regard to promises be your concern, break or keep ’em as you feels you must, but any promise Isaac Eldon gives be kept, an’ supposin’ this be naught as will put my wench an’ her lad to any risk, then you ’ave my word
.’

     Overhead the large bodies of several barrage balloons hovered like ships caught on a windless sea, their bulk blotting out the stars. It had been so still, so calm, a world where war was not even a memory; then Conroy had spoken of what had transpired in that headmaster’s room, of Reuben’s brush with death. Shaking hands prior to walking away, he said, ‘
Your grandson deserved his lieutenant’s insignia; I only wish it had been awarded
.’

     ‘Dad, you say this new plant has been approved, is that all there is to it – for you, I mean?’ Taking the heated flat iron from the trivet drawn close against the fire to smooth creases from the shirt she was ironing, Miriam glanced at her father.

     Isaac shook his head, trying to drive away from his mind pictures of a boy lying dead, a black hole where his temple should have been.

     ‘Eh?’ he frowned.

     Miriam spat on the hot iron. The resulting sizzle testifying to its readiness, she took it to the table. ‘This new factory, will it mean changes for you?’

     ‘’Ow d’you mean, wench . . . changes?’ Isaac frowned more deeply.

     ‘I mean who will be running the place? Arthur Whitman can’t be in both and you . . . well, you hated being in the position of manager. If anybody deserves to be in charge then it’s you, but I wouldn’t want you with that worry again.’