A Step Too Far (33 page)

     ‘Be that what the police thought? Be that why he were arrested?’

     ‘That be the trouble, they d’aint stop to think!’ Polly Butler’s indignant retort rang across the line of customers, their own conversations put on hold.

     ‘. . . It were Jack Butler had lamped Slater that other time so it must be Jack Butler done the deed this time.’

     ‘Eh, Polly wench, that be terrible for you.’

     ‘Well, it weren’t no party I can tell you, but it be my lad had the worse of it, bein’ fetched away from his work while ’alf of Wednesbury looked on and the other ’alf a’ gloatin’. Yes, our Jack give Slater a hidin’ but what brother worth his salt wouldn’t ’ave done the same were it a sister of his got slapped. I tell you, Ginny, if our Jack hadn’t done what he did then it would ’ave been him as well as Slater got a pummelling ’cos I’d ’ave given it him meself no matter he be grown.’

     ‘And you wouldn’t ’ave been doin’ less than any mother would do, Polly.’

     The queue shuffled forward a few steps as a customer left the shop with her groceries.

     ‘I told them bobbies the same,’ Polly returned. ‘Told them straight out to their faces, a bloke who knocks a woman about deserves more than a hidin’, he deserves gaol, and that for a bloody long time!’

     ‘I agrees wi’ all you say, but Slater won’t be goin’ to gaol.’

     Katrin smiled to herself. Jim Slater would not be going to prison. He would be going to hell.

     ‘That be the worst part,’ Polly answered vindictively. ‘That swine should ’ave lived long enough to tell it weren’t our Jack set about him.’

     How long
had
he lived? Katrin felt her nerves twang. The Inspector who had called to interview her had said Slater was dead but he had not said whether he had died prior to or after being found. If it were prior, had Slater said who had thrust that broken bottle into his throat?

     ‘But they ain’t still holdin’ your lad, the police ’ave let him go, ain’t they?’

     ‘D’ain’t ’ave no option.’ Righteousness resounding in every note Polly Butler’s response dominated the shop. ‘My lad had the provin’ that it weren’t him had done for Jim Slater.’

     ‘That be a blessin’ Polly.’

     Regret registered in Ginny’s reply.

     ‘Not so much a one for that Inspector and the rest of them bobbies, they was ready to lock my lad up and forget where it was they’d put him, but now they ’as to go on lookin’ ’til they finds who it is be truly guilty.’

     The words fell heavily on Katrin. Had the police got some lead, some information? Could that information possibly point to her?

     ‘My lad had a witness!’

     A witness! Jack Butler had someone backing his claim of innocence! Had that witness seen what had happened?

     ‘Fact be he had more’n a dozen could vouch for him!’

     ‘He told ’em, but them bobbies wouldn’t listen.’ Polly slapped a handful of ration books onto the counter. ‘Kept him hours they did askin’ of the same questions time after time. It weren’t ’til he told ’em he’d answer nothin’ more lessen they spoke to others that they finally done what he asked and talked to his mates. Three lads he works alongside of had gone together with my lad straight from the foundry when their shift ended, that bein’ eight o’clock at night. They went straight over to the ’Ome Guard base where they was kept on duty ’til next mornin’ when the four of ’em walked ’ome together. Our Jack weren’t never gone from their sight nor that of the others of them ’Ome Guard lads not once. He were with them when Jim Slater got done in, that put the cobblebosh on that Inspector’s reckonin’, now he has to go lookin’ for the real culprit.’

     ‘Do the police ’ave any notion as to who that be? Did Jim Slater tell aught of who done it?’

     An expectant silence fell over the shop and Katrin feared the loud throb of blood in her veins must be heard. Would Fortune smile again or would it turn its face away?

     Polly watched several tawny coloured coupons fall to the counter. A warning note in her voice said firmly:

‘The bobbies won’t need no tellin’ of who it be has done for you ’Arold Pearks if you cuts more of them coupons than you should, you’ll be goin’ home light of a few things and them things won’t be no food coupons!’

     Behind the counter Harold Pearks smiled, his bushy grey eyebrows lifting. ‘I ain’t never cut too many up to yet, Polly.’

     ‘And you’d better go on not never cuttin’ too many, fact be you should ought to cut less of them there coupons for a good customer.’

     ‘Now that would bring the police to my door.’

     ‘Ar well,’ Polly answered his laugh with her own, ‘I’d far rather they come a knockin’ of your door than mine.’

     The conversation drifting dangerously from the subject in hand Ginny shuffled her own ration books from the deep belly of a coarse hessian shopping bag.

     ‘I hopes they won’t come knockin’ on account of Jim Slater tellin’ it were Harold Pearks set about him.’

     ‘Ain’t likely, Ginny.’ The elderly man chuckled. ‘It be all I can do to set about me dinner these days.’

     ‘I knows the feelin’.’ Ginny returned. ‘Ain’t none of we got the energy these days, but saying that it seems somebody has got plenty, at least enough to set about Jim Slater; I only hopes he’s told the bobbies who it be.’

     Slapping a lump of butter between a pair of wooden pats before placing it on scales set to one side of the counter, Harold Pearks nodded affably, a grin deepening the wrinkles around his eyes. ‘So do I, Ginny.’ He removed the butter and wrapped it deftly in a square of greaseproof paper. ‘Just so long as he ain’t said it were me.’

     Keenly as she had followed the cutting of coupons and the weighing of the butter, Polly watched the fine wire slice deftly through a block of cheese, severing a portion which would serve no more than three days’ supply of dinner sandwiches and only then if it were cut thinner than moth wings.

     ‘Bobbies would ’ave no mind to that,’ she retorted, placing the cheese beside an equally meagre amount of butter. ‘Your mother don’t go lettin’ you out after dark.’

     The grocer handed Polly two dark blue paper bags, each containing one pound of sugar. ‘Weren’t you were spoke of  . . .’

     Needle pricks of alarm jabbed at Katrin’s brain. Jim Slater
had
said something! Lord, why hadn’t she made certain he would never speak again? She should have stayed long enough to see the job thoroughly done, to see Jim Slater totally dead. But it was too late for ‘why’, too late for anything other than concocting an alibi, one which must negate all that Slater might have said; but what . . . how?

     ‘Them police d’ain’t say of nobody’s name. But then they wouldn’t,’ Polly was still speaking. ‘Kept a tight mouth did them police when I asked who it were my lad been brought in to pay the piper for their wrong tune, oh no! That Inspector weren’t answerin’ of that, though it weren’t in his reckonin’ that every tongue might not be tight as his’n.’

     ‘Does tha’ go to say one has been a waggin’?’

     ‘I do!’ Polly’s reply was emphatic. ‘And what’s more it be one as can’t ’ave no arguin’ with.’

     Katrin’s throat closed, sickeningly cutting off air from her lungs.

     ‘. . . The men who found Slater on their way to work at ’alf past five that mornin’ uses the Rising Sun in Meeting Street, they shares a pint with my old man – whenever there be a pint to be had, that is – anyway they told him that Slater were stone cold dead when they come across of him so he couldn’t ’ave told the police who hit him.’

     Jim Slater had been dead! Katrin’s brain sang the words. The police had no information and she would need no alibi.

     ‘Seems they’ll ’ave to go on lookin’ for that villain.’

     Let them look, they wouldn’t see what was beneath their noses. Who could possibly suspect the young, well educated daughter of the respectable Jacob Hawley to be a killer?

     She could write off the episode of Mr James Slater!

30

Slater was dead! Elation in every step, Katrin left the grocery shop and crossed the busy Market Place, weaving between stalls so surrounded by eager customers it was virtually impossible to see the goods on offer. But it was not only greengrocery to be had from the market, some stalls offered a bare selection of household goods, candles and matches all quickly snatched up to be kept for use in air raid shelters, while others carried a variety of second-hand clothing and part-worn shoes, all no doubt obtained from pawnshops ridding themselves of unredeemed pledges. Some women, judging it more practical, bought second-hand to wear in factories, thereby allowing the saving of treasured clothing coupons for new clothes bought for a special occasion.

     A special occasion such as the wedding Becky Turner had seen vanish before her eyes.

     Alice Butler’s agitated whisper floated in her mind.

     ‘
. . . is there any way we can help, ’cos if we don’t then Becky will surely kill herself
.’

     Not yet! Her brain whispered. Becky Turner must not kill herself just yet!

     What was it her mother used to say? ‘When one door closes another opens.’ That was exactly what had happened. The door had closed on her attempt to have Isaac Eldon gaoled but another had opened and the wedge she intended to use would ensure it did not close until she had seen that man crushed, his family along with him.

     The method – neat, efficient and practical – had sprung perfectly formed into her mind, but she had said no word of it to Alice. Katrin Hawley must not be seen as a collaborator.

     Having reached the house and stored the groceries in their various cupboards, Katrin read again her father’s note. He would be the rest of the day and evening at Titan. It could possibly be very late before he returned.

     Another door opens! Katrin walked upstairs to her room. Crossing to the dressing table she opened a drawer and withdrew the delicate lavender silk.

     As with the gift of dresses to Alice and Becky, she had once again chosen to talk with them in her own home rather than the factory canteen; it was the only way she could be certain no other ears heard her proposal. When a timid tap at the door announced their arrival, Katrin ushered them through the hall and into the living room, Becky bursting into tears the moment her bottom touched the chair.

     ‘Oh God,’ she sobbed, ‘what am I goin’ to do?’

     ‘First thing you be goin’ to do is stop snivellin’!’ Alice thrust a handkerchief into shaking hands. ‘Cryin’ don’t wipe up spilt milk but it does make the eyes all red and puffy so unless you wants your mother to be asking questions you’ll stop right now!’

     ‘Alice is right, Becky, it is the sensible thing to do.’

     Tension so long coiled in Becky released itself in the rush of words. ‘Sensible!’ she said, blue eyes flashing brilliantly through tears. ‘Sensible! Since when was sensible the answer to pregnancy? To a child I d’ain’t ask for and I certainly don’t want?’

     ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean  . . .’

     ‘I know Kate, you only meant to help.’ Becky pressed the handkerchief to her eyes. ‘But there’s nothing you can do, nothing anybody can do except for Earl.’

     ‘An’ he ain’t comin’ back!’ Alice snapped. ‘He be gone for good and the sooner you gets used to the fact the better. He weren’t in the running for a wife, but simply out for all he could get.’

     Which he had certainly got. Concealing the thought behind a falsely sympathetic smile, Katrin poured a conciliatory cup of tea.

     ‘Your mother does not know yet?’

     ‘Oh Lord, Kate, no! I dread her finding out, her’ll have me put away that’s if her don’t kill me herself, either be preferable to her than have it broadcast all over Wednesbury her daughter be carryin’ a bastard.’

     ‘You could go away, some place in the country where you are not known.’

     ‘My askin’ to leave home would have the same result Alice got when her asked to join the Women’s Forces, it wouldn’t even be thought on.’

     ‘Well, anythin’ be a deal more useful than sittin’ cryin’ your eyes out!’

     ‘Then what do you suggest?’ Agitation had Becky’s question flare into a demand. ‘We all knows what be of no use so now you tell what
do
be of use! Well, what be of use, Alice?’

     Alice could find no answer.

     Katrin collected teacups onto a tray and carried them to the kitchen.

     They could see no way. But Katrin Hawley had a way! She looked down at the prettily decorated china her mother had taken so much pride in. A few more minutes’ distress, a little longer worrying would serve to reinforce the suggestion she would offer. The hurdle was getting Becky Turner to agree. But set that hurdle beside the insurmountable barrier that was Mary Turner and any objection would most certainly disappear.

     ‘I hope your mother will not be annoyed with your coming here tonight, I know she relies on your help with your brothers and sisters.’

     ‘Annoyed,’ Becky sniffed miserably, ‘that ain’t what her will be feelin’ once her gets to know I’m carryin’. The worst temper I’ve ever seen her have will seem like nothing more than a babby’s tantrum in comparison to the explosion that’ll bring.’