After Hours (24 page)

Walter put his head to one side, looking warily at her now. ‘Does he know you came here?'

She jumped. ‘No. It was my idea. He's not to find out.'

Walter weighed this up. ‘That's something, at any rate. Now, the way you see it is, I talk Rob round. I say, “Let's get Richie Palmer back to work on the cars. We need him here.” Rob says yes. We go straight to Richie without mentioning your name in all this?'

Sadie nodded. ‘It's asking a lot, I know. But you and me are good friends, ain't we? We'll always be that.'

Walter knew Sadie inside out: impetuous, kind, the petted youngest
child. She sat there full of torn loyalties, battling with things she couldn't control. ‘I'll have a go,' he promised.

Sadie grasped the edge of the desk. ‘Thanks, Walter. I knew you'd help.' She stood up, relief flooding her dark eyes. ‘You'll telephone me at work?'

‘If I get anywhere with Rob, yes. But not today. You gotta give me a couple of days. It ain't likely I'll get the chance to talk to him over the weekend. It's our busy time.'

Sadie nodded and impulsively kissed him on the cheek. Then he watched her rush out across the cinder yard, a sense of loss rekindled in his heart. He put the phone back on its hook, smoothed his newspaper flat on the desk and walked slowly into the yard, where he leaned a forearm against the side of his cab and gave the tyre one hefty, heartfelt kick.

‘Temper!' a voice said. It was the cropped constable, hot on Rob's trail. He'd seen a young woman looking hot and bothered dash out of the gates. ‘A case of
cherchez la femme
,' he smirked.

Walter stood up straight. ‘What's that?'

The policeman strolled across. ‘Robert Parsons, is it?' Confidence oozed from him. He stood, feet wide apart, hands behind his back.

‘He's out,' Walter said, wary now. ‘What's it about?'

The policeman ignored his question. ‘You're Walter Davidson, then? The partner.' After the visit to the tenement earlier in the week, the sergeant had more or less dumped the Wiggin murder case in his young colleague's lap. Diligently he set about gathering information on their one and only suspect. Parsons was part-owner of a small taxicab business down Meredith Court. There was a mixture of interesting things in his background. He was sent home wounded from the war with a chip on his shoulder. His brother was had up for murder, but got off. There was a strange coincidence, for a start. He'd been something of a boxer in his day, before the war, and was known for his hot temper.

Slowly Walter nodded. ‘Shall I tell Rob you came looking for him?' He glanced over the constable's shoulder. ‘No need. Here he comes now.'

Rob had left the funeral and cut along the back way, down a
narrow alley running the length of the factory wall from Paradise to Meredith Court. So he came across the yard from an oblique angle and stopped suddenly in mid-stride. The sight of a copper talking to Walter gave him a start. But he soon came forward with a clear conscience. ‘There ain't been an accident, I hope?' he asked. He was feeling relaxed. The funeral had gone off better than expected.

‘No. I'm looking into the death of William Wiggins. I have to ask you a few questions, sir, if you don't mind.' The policeman drew himself up to full height.

‘Cor blimey!' Rob threw down his cigarette butt, amused by the young copper's punctiliousness.

‘This is a serious matter.' The policeman recognized the attack on his fragile authority. He'd only been in uniform for six months. ‘I have to ask you to think back to where you was on the night of Wiggin's death on the third of August.' He sounded stiff and mechanical, even to himself.

‘How the bleeding hell should I know?' Rob hadn't been expecting this. As far as he was concerned, the policeman was taking a liberty.

Walter shot him a look.

There was a short pause, then the policeman cleared his throat. ‘That don't sound too good, for a start.'

Rob took a step towards him. ‘What the hell's it got to do with you where I was that night?'

‘I'd think about it if I was you, never mind why.'

But Rob saw only me absurdity of it all. ‘You ain't saying I . . . I ain't one of your suspects?' He laughed at the idea.

‘Just answer the question. Where was you on the night of the murder?'

‘Not at home, for a start. Ask him.' Rob nodded towards Walter. ‘I'm staying at his place: Go on, Walt, tell him I was out. All night! But it ain't against the law, so far as I know.'

The policeman turned to the more respectable-looking partner. Reluctantly Walter had to agree.

‘Where then, exactly?'

‘I ain't checked my diary, I can't say.' Rob's face set into a
sarcastic scowl. This was beginning not to be funny. He dug in his heels. In any case, the coppers twisted everything you told them.

‘But you must have some sort of alibi,' the policeman objected.

‘Well, I ain't. Sling me in the nick for it if you like.'

Walter walked across the yard to remonstrate with him. ‘Give the man an answer, Rob. Just tell him what he wants to hear and then we can get rid of him.'

‘Let him find it out,' Rob scoffed. ‘Ain't that what he's paid for?' He gave the stiff-looking officer a look loaded with scorn. ‘I ain't saying a dicky bird!' He went into the office and slammed the door.

Walter shook his head. The young constable gave in and went off up the court, tight-lipped. He'd been well and truly got at, but that wasn't the end of the matter, as Rob Parsons would soon see.

Richie's Friday was spent fruitlessly wandering the streets of Mile End in search of work. ‘No Vacancies' was the word everywhere he went.

He trudged on in the August heat, hearing children wail from high in the tenement blocks, and the strains of blues musk issuing through coffee-house doorways in the insalubrious back streets. The slow, decadent notes captured his mood and drew him towards the windows. Inside, there would be women sitting round tables under a haze of cigarette smoke, their eyebrows arched, their lips painted blood-red.

Richie looked, but never entered. Everything cost money. Charlie Chaplin's white face, with its bowler hat and black wedge of moustache, stared down from a billboard over the entrance to a picture-house. These days he couldn't afford to take Sadie to see a film, even if he wanted to. He went home with empty pockets, and was already there, curtains drawn, stretching his legs out across a chair, when she came in from work.

‘Here I am, I'm back!' She flung down her bag and whisked back the curtains' to let in the sunlight. ‘Ain't it hot? I couldn't half do with a cup of tea.' She waltzed round the room, picking up his jacket from the floor, lifting his legs and putting the chair back under the table. ‘But first off, what wouldn't I give for a kiss!' She perched on his knee, pecking at his cheeks with friendly little kisses.

‘Steady on.' He almost overbalanced backwards in his chair, letting her tip off his knee, then pulling her upright, ‘What's got into you all of a sudden?'

She laughed. ‘Nothing. The sunshine, that's what. Ain't it a beautiful day?'

‘That depends.'

‘On what? Oh, I'm sorry, Richie. Ain't you had a good day?' Excitement at what she'd dared to do on his behalf had made her ignore his slog to find work. She kissed him more softly, this time on the mouth.

He let her cuddle up. ‘How come?' he asked.

‘How come what?'

‘How come you ain't miserable? Ain't funerals meant to make you cry?' He stroked his broad rhumb against her smooth cheek, his hand cupped around the nape of her neck.

‘That was this morning,' she replied, a shade too quick.

‘And?'

‘And some of us have been to work since then.' His probing made her irritable, but she was straightaway contrite. ‘Sorry, I never said that.' She nuzzled up to him, arms slung around his neck.

He sighed and looked directly into her eyes. ‘You ain't having me on by any chance?' She was, he was certain. She was too breezy, too determined to cheer him up.

‘In what way?' She opened her eyes wide, but couldn't hold his gaze.

‘About going to the funeral.' For Richie, there was nothing worse than being made to look a tool.

‘I ain't!' she protested faintly.

‘I think you are' He looped his arms around her waist, taking her own hands and pinning them to the small of her back.

She looked up with a half-smile. ‘You got a suspicious mind, Richie Palmer.' She was caught between denial and the excitement of her secret.

‘Don't. Don't play games.'

His deep, muffled voice swayed things. ‘Promise you won't be mad at me,' she said. ‘I'll tell you all about it, so long as you see it's all for the best.'

He leaned away. ‘How can I, before you tell me what it is?'

She was committed anyway. ‘Oh, all right, I ain't been to Wiggin's
funeral, you're right about that.' She held a hand to his mouth before he could interrupt. ‘I did something for us instead!' She wanted to rush ahead, get into the calm waters without experiencing the storm. ‘Just listen. I went to see Walter. He never expected me. I just showed up at the yard. I talked to him, and he promised he'd try to talk Rob round into giving you your job back. What do you think?' She ended up breathless, trying to read his reaction.

Richie broke away from her.

‘I said, what do you think, Richie?'

He headed for the bedroom, kicking the door open.

She followed him. ‘I asked you nicely, don't be mad,' she pleaded. His silence was like a blow. It knocked her self-control from under her. ‘Richie, please don't do this. It ain't fair.'

He turned to yell at her. ‘What did you have to go and do that for? You can't push me around! Do this, do that. Work here, work there!'

His savage voice frightened her. ‘That ain't fair,' she whispered.

‘And it ain't fair of you to go behind my back. You could've asked me first.'

‘You'd have said no.'

‘Too bleeding right! No, I won't let you go crawling back to that pair! No, I don't want their bleeding job; understand?' He despaired of her naivety and selfishness.

‘And where would your “no” leave us?' Sadie found the courage to fight back. ‘“No” leaves us bleeding well on the breadline, Richie! That's what. If you ain't gonna let Walter give you your old job back, we'll starve to death and you won't lift a finger to stop it!'

They shouted at each other, face to face. His eyes were hooded and averted, hers angry and desperate. Sadie only came to his shoulder, but, slight as she was, she would stand up to him.

‘We ain't on the breadline!' he retorted.

‘Not yet, we ain't.'

‘That's bleeding stupid.'

‘It ain't, it ain't! I went to get you work, Richie, that's what. Any work is better than nothing. If you don't start bringing
something in soon, we're in the cart!' She began to sob and beat a rhythm on his chest with her fists.

He caught her wrists. ‘What are you going on, about? They given you the sack? It's that swine, Turnbull, ain't it?'

She shook her head. Her hair fell forward. Wet strands stuck to her cheek. ‘No, they ain't given me the sack. Not yet. But they will, soon as they find out.'

‘Find out what?' He held her roughly, tempted to shake some sense out of her.

‘Will you listen to me, Richie? Swan and Edgar don't keep on women like me!'

‘What you on about?' He let her hands drop, stood back. She was trembling and crying.

‘Girls who ain't married, and go and get themselves pregnant!' She turned to flee from the room.

Richie beat her to the door. He put out his arm to bar her way. ‘Say that again!' he whispered.

‘I'm pregnant, Richie. I'm gonna have a baby.' She staggered into his arms and buried her head against his shoulder.

Overwhelmed, he stroked her hair. ‘You ain't?' He shook his head.

‘You can ask the doctor if you don't believe me,' she sobbed. ‘What are we gonna do, Richie? What are we gonna do?'

That weekend, as the weather changed from clear blue to grey and thundery, Walter Davidson made sure to drop a word in Duke's ear about the police poking round the yard after Rob. He judged it best to give the old man a chance to look after his headstrong son's interest, since Rob seemed set on a suicide mission all of his own. ‘He won't give them what they want,' Walter warned Duke. He'd gone calling to Annie's house on the Sunday morning specially.

‘And what's that?' Duke listened, head down, taking it all in. ‘What do the police want with him?'

‘Where he was the night Wiggin was done in, that's all.' Walter stood in the front room, eyes on the aspidistra, fiddling with his
hat. He felt bad about tipping more trouble in the old couple's lap.

Annie drew a sharp breath.

‘Why not? Why won't he say?' Duke persisted.

Walter shrugged. ‘You know how he is. He don't like coppers.'

Duke stood up and walked to the bay window. ‘Ain't he got the sense he was born with?'

‘You know he ain't,' Annie put in. She cut a quaint figure; fifteen years out of date with her high bun, her leg-of-mutton sleeves and long skirt. Now what? she wondered. Surely the coppers weren't serious about Rob. She went to the empty grate and rattled away with the poker to no good effect, except to ease her own frustration.

‘I thought maybe you'd talk to him.' Walter began to back out of the room. ‘Put him straight.'

Duke nodded. ‘It's good of you, Walter.'

Walter acknowledged their thanks and left quietly. Annie showed him out. When she closed the front door, she hurried straight back to Duke. ‘You ain't to think the worst!' she warned him. ‘They ain't about to arrest Rob just 'cos he won't tell them where he was.'