Love Changes Everything (20 page)

He noticed that the windows above the shop had iron bars across them but it was impossible to see into the room beyond so he was unable to tell if anyone actually lived there.

If one of the shops had been a newsagent's, then he would have gone in and bought an evening paper and perhaps had an opportunity to ask if they'd seen a girl answering to Trixie's description around there recently. As it was, even if she was living in the vicinity, neither of the shops were the sort she was likely to visit.

He walked past on the other side of the road twice more, straining his eyes to see if he could see anyone in the room. Once he thought he caught the shadow of someone by the window and that they were waving, but when he looked again there was nothing and so he put it down to his imagination working overtime.

He didn't know what to tell Jake. He knew that both he and Ivy were relying on him to find out something but his strict adherence to banking rules stopped him from actually giving them Fred Linacre's address.

After he'd eaten his evening meal he told his mother he was going out for a while.

‘Whatever for? You haven't got night school on a Monday evening, have you?' she asked in surprise.

For a moment he was tempted to lie. ‘No,' he admitted, ‘but I do need to see Jake about something.'

‘Isn't it time you broke off seeing him? You're not school boys now; it's time you found some better-class friends, chaps you work with, not someone who wears greasy overalls and grafts down at the docks,' she said disparagingly.

‘Most of the chaps I work with live out at Walton, Crosby or Maghull, or over in Wallasey,' he told her. ‘Once they finish work they can't wait to get away from Scotland Road and the docks.'

‘I know, I know. We'll move away from here the minute your father gets on his feet again,' she said irritably.

‘Yes, I know that is what you want to do, but not everyone around the Scotland Road area is a slummy, you know.' He felt really angry about his mother's remarks about Jake. ‘Countless other families would move away, you know, Mum; only, like us, they've fallen on hard times and either lost all their money or their jobs and been forced to move into this area.'

He'd always known that his mother was a snob, ever since his first day at school when she had warned him not to play with any scruffy-looking little boys.

He still laughed to himself whenever he thought about it because, apart from him, they'd all been scruffy. He'd been the only one in trim grey shorts, a jumper without holes in the elbows, and grey socks and polished shoes. Several of them had poked fun at him, started pushing him about and asking him if he was one of the mannequins from Lewis's window. The only one who'd stuck up for him had been Jake and they'd been friends ever since.

Even so he'd never really fitted in. The other boys teased him and called him a swot because he preferred reading to fighting, and he was never allowed to stay out in the street at night playing tag or swinging from the lamp-posts.

The girls had laughed at him because his hair was always neatly cut and he always looked well scrubbed. Some of them even called him a ‘Wallasey boy'. At first, before Jake had shocked him by telling him the real meaning of those words, he'd taken it as a compliment because they'd lived over the other side of the Mersey in a posh house at Egremont before his father's troubles had left them penniless. He'd rarely spoken to any girls, except Jake's sister Ivy, till she'd introduced him to Trixie.

Trixie was different from Ivy, not only in looks but also in so many other ways. For that matter she was different from any of the other girls around Scotland Road. He really liked her and it worried him to think that she could be in some sort of trouble.

He really did want to tell Jake where Fred Linacre lived but loyalty to the bank made it seem impossible. Then he hit on an idea; he could point out the house without actually telling him that it was the place they were looking for. That was why he was nipping round to see Jake on a Monday evening.

Jake was almost as surprised to see him on the doorstep as his own mother had been when he'd said he was going out.

‘Coming for a jar?' Andrew invited.

‘On a Monday, you mad, whacker? I've no ackers from now till payday. I thought you had some news for me.'

‘Come on, don't stand arguing or your mum and Ivy will want to know what's going on. Get your coat and cap and catch me up.'

Andrew had only gone a few hundred yards along Horatio Street when Jake joined him.

‘Where we going, then?' Jake asked as they turned in the direction of Scotland Road.

‘Cavendish Road. It's a few turnings along on the right. Do you know it?'

‘Is this something to do with Trixie?'

Andrew shrugged. ‘It could be. I want to point out a house to you, or rather a flat up over a shop. Come on, you'll see what I mean; it's only round the corner.' As they turned into Cavendish Road he deliberately walked on the opposite side of the road to number twenty.

‘See that ironmonger's over on the other side of the road?' he said casually. ‘Look up at the windows above it, do you think there's anyone living there?'

‘It's a job to tell with those bars across the window. Somebody seems to be up there because you can see a light. It's not very bright, probably only a candle or an oil lamp, but there's definitely a light on up there. It could be a storeroom, of course . . .' Jake's voice trailed off. ‘Are you saying that's where Fred Linacre lives?'

Trixie felt desperate. She'd been confined to the rooms that Fred called home for over a week and she was no nearer finding a way of getting away than she had been when her dad had first brought her up there.

She was sure her mother must be beside herself with worry by now and she couldn't bear to think what sort of a state Cilla must be in. Even if her mum did try and explain things to her she'd never be able to make her understand.

She wondered what her dad was saying; was he telling the truth about where she was? He couldn't be, she reasoned, otherwise her mother would have tried to see her.

Each day she'd spent hours and hours sitting by the window watching to see if her mother walked down the road. Even if she couldn't let her in she could have waved to her and made her understand that she couldn't even open the window.

Being on her own for so much of the time was a torture in itself. She had no one to share her worries with or even to talk to. There was no way that she could think of that she could get a message to her mum or even to Ivy.

By now her mum must have gone round to the O'Malleys and told them what had happened and she wondered if Ivy had said something to Andrew so that at least he'd know that she hadn't deliberately stood him up.

She'd hated Fred when she'd worked in the factory but now she positively loathed him. He not only taunted her about being his prisoner, but he also kept hinting at what was going to happen to her in the future. From time to time he made it quite clear that he'd paid her father good money for her so that she was tied to him for life and that there was no question of her ever getting away from him.

That was a fate she definitely couldn't endure and she tried desperately to think of some way of forcing him to change his plans and let her go.

She turned over in her mind all the possible ways she could do this and then reluctantly abandoned them because she knew they wouldn't work, and that Fred was clever enough to spot what she was doing. She'd already tried to break the glass in the windows but it was too tough and, anyway, she knew that the iron bars outside were so close together that they would prevent her escaping.

The best way would be to attract someone's attention to the fact that she was imprisoned up there and it had to be in such a way that Fred would be forced to admit she was in his flat. Banging on the windows had proved to be absolutely useless so she knew she had to find some other method.

Finally, she decided the only way to escape was to harm herself in some way so that Fred had to call for help or she had to go to hospital.

It was the perfect answer, she told herself, and wondered why she hadn't thought of it before. All she had to do was decide what sort of an accident she was going to have.

Even that was not as easy as she'd thought. She couldn't get out on to the stairs so she couldn't fall down them. She tried jumping off a chair but apart from twisting her ankle slightly and making it painful to walk around, that was no good.

She took a sheet from the bed with the idea of making it into a rope and hanging herself. It seemed dramatic but it would be all right as long as she did it a few minutes before Fred came in so that he could cut her down before she actually came to any real harm, but she couldn't find anywhere to suspend the sheet from that would raise her high enough off the ground.

The only other way was to do something drastic like cutting herself so badly that there was blood all over the place. The idea scared her because it would probably be painful. She'd cut her finger once and she could still remember that it had hurt for days afterwards and yet there hadn't been very much blood. She'd have to cut herself pretty badly to make it necessary for her to have to go to hospital. But would he take her there? She wasn't sure. Supposing he just let her lie there and suffer or bleed to death and not do a thing about it?

The more she thought about it the more she was sure that if she was severely hurt then he would get help because if she did bleed to death he'd have a body on his hands. What was more, he'd have her father at his throat wanting his money back.

Bringing herself to inflict an injury serious enough to need hospital attention wasn't going to be easy. She wasn't frightened of blood, not even her own, but she was scared of pain. Making a cut with a knife long enough and deep enough to do some real damage would take a lot of courage.

The sooner she did it the better, she decided. She knew what time Fred would be home because she had to have his meal ready. If she did it about five minutes before he was due to arrive, then she'd be able to convince him that she'd cut herself while carving the meat.

She toyed with the big sharp carver, testing it lightly on the fleshy part of her arm to see how sharp it really was before deciding on the best place to make the cut. She did it so lightly that all it did was make a red mark that soon faded and didn't even draw blood. She tried to stick the very point of the knife into one of the veins on the back of her hand but, apart from making an indentation surrounded by a white area where the blood had momentarily been cut off, she couldn't bring herself to stab hard enough to break through the flesh. Anyway, there wasn't much point in opening a vein; it ought to be an artery so that the blood would pump out and go everywhere and he'd be so concerned about her that he'd rush to get help.

She was on the verge of abandoning her plan because she knew she hadn't the will-power to slash or stab herself with sufficient force to do any damage because the thought of the pain scared her, when she remembered the cut-throat razor Fred used when he shaved every morning. Now that would be sharp, she told herself. He kept it so by stropping it on a special strip of leather every time he used it and afterwards he had to be extremely careful when he cleaned it because it would slice through the towel if he held it at the wrong angle.

That would do exactly what she wanted and it would be so quick and easy to use that she would be able to cut herself before she knew she'd done it, she told herself.

She was standing in the living room, holding the razor in her hand, shaking so much that her teeth were chattering as she contemplated how she would use it and where it would be best to inflict the wound, when she heard the noise on the stairs that signalled Fred was home. The sound startled her so much that, before she could control it, her hand, which was still holding the razor, had gone to her mouth to stop herself screaming and the razor had slashed across her throat.

She felt a sharp, but not unpleasant sensation, as blood spurted like a miniature fountain, splashing on to her face, soaking the front of her blouse, and dripping down her skirt.

It gushed so quickly that she felt faint; almost as if the life was draining out of her.

As Fred pushed open the door and saw her swaying backwards and forwards, holding the back of a chair for support, his mouth gaped open in shock.

‘Christ! What have you gone and done?'

She tried to speak but the words wouldn't come, and there was a mist in front of her eyes and a rushing sound in her ears. She felt as though she was floating. Before Fred could reach her she slid to the floor in a blood-soaked heap.

Chapter Eighteen

Maggie was shaking like a leaf and her mouth felt dry as the nurse escorted her to a bed that had curtains drawn around it to screen it off from the rest of the ward.

Her hand flew to her lips to stop herself from screaming as the nurse pulled the curtain aside and she saw Trixie lying there looking like a waxen doll. Her neck was swathed in bandages and there were so many tubes and wires attached to her body that she was filled with concern.

‘Trixie.' Maggie's voice was a shaky whisper, but the nurse shook her head and shushed her to silence.

‘Mrs Jackson, your daughter's been sedated, so it's pointless speaking to her because she won't hear you,' she said authoritatively. ‘You may sit with her for a few minutes if you wish, but it would be better if you came back tomorrow.'

The nurse bustled away, closing the curtains before she left. Maggie sat there in a trance staring at Trixie. Trixie's arms were at her sides, stiff and straight, but Maggie was afraid to even hold her hand, in case it was the wrong thing to do.