Pack Up Your Troubles (43 page)

‘Did she talk to you about Stan Saul?’

Rev Jackson put up his hand in a stop signal. ‘I’m afraid I am not at liberty to discuss a confidence.’

‘Sir, we have reason to believe he’s a child molester,’ said Eugène firmly.

‘Oh, I think not,’ said Rev Jackson smiling benevolently. ‘Connie was a little confused, that’s all. After the events of yesterday that’s hardly surprising …’

‘Connie wasn’t making it up, Reverend,’ said Kez. ‘I know she’s telling the truth ’cos he done it to me an’ all.’

It was dark in the cellar. The only light came from a dirty window near the ceiling. Connie sat miserably on the stair and cried. Her leg hurt like hell from where she’d fallen and she’d done something to her finger. She’d been an absolute idiot. No one knew where she was and there was no telling what Stan and his mother would do next. Even though no one believed her, it was in Stan’s best interest to shut her up somehow. The cottage was isolated so there was no point in shouting for help. No one would hear her anyway. There were other cottages in the road but Aggie’s place stood apart from them. Gradually, as her eyes became used to the dimness, she looked around for some sort of weapon. She was no match for the two of them, especially with a bad leg, but, by God, she’d go down fighting. The one person she found hard to cope with was Auntie Aggie. Surely the woman could see what her son was like and yet she’d closed her eyes to what he was doing again and again.

Connie looked around. She found a rolled umbrella with a long spike in a corner. It looked as if someone had hammered it a bit and she couldn’t open it up but it might come in handy. There was a steel ruler on a table by the wall. She practised a couple of jabbing movements with it. She would have to be really close to someone to make a difference but in a desperate situation, it was better than nothing. She put them both near the bottom of the stairs.

The light was fading. Soon it would be completely dark and Connie knew that’s when she would be in the greatest danger. She rubbed her cold arms. She wished she’d kept her cardigan on now but it was still upstairs in the sitting room. She looked up at the cellar door. Was there some way she could barricade herself in? He wouldn’t be expecting that. She hobbled back to the stairs to look at the lock. The stairs were quite rickety, but the door at the top was stout. It was opened by a latch and a keyhole but the key wasn’t on the other side of the door. Her only hope of stopping them from getting in and buy a little time was to block the latch.

Back downstairs, she scoured the cellar for something to use as a wedge. The whole place was surprisingly clean. Rows of kilner jars with preserved fruit and pickles lined the shelves. The floor was nicely swept and there was a table and chair in the corner. She tried the drawer in the table and cried out in surprise. Inside she’d found a fountain pen and some paper, a pretty beige with a watermark, neatly laid out. She held it up to the fading light and saw the same lion’s head watermark that she’d noticed in Matron’s office. Whoever wrote the damning letter that got her the sack had used this very paper. Connie sat down on the chair to think. In her own mind, she had accused Ga. Ga had some of this paper in her desk. Mandy had got into trouble for trying to take a sheet because Ga always said it was for her and her alone. Yet Auntie Aggie had some too. Could it be that it was Auntie Aggie who had written to Matron? But how would she have known what happened in the lift? Then Connie remembered telling the family about it. Had Aunt Aggie been there too? Even if she wasn’t, she and Ga told each other everything so it was perfectly possible that Ga had told her the story about Mr Steppings. Connie’s heartbeat quickened.

There was a letter opener and a small hard-backed book at the back of the drawer. The book seemed to be a list of names, all beautifully written in the same copperplate handwriting. But before she examined anything else, Connie climbed the stairs again and forced the letter opener through the latch. It was rudimentary, but it would give her a little more time, if nothing else. Then she went back downstairs to have another look at what was in the drawer.

Eva had been busy collecting signatures. It seemed that the whole hospital was shocked by Connie’s sacking. She’d obviously made a huge impression on people and everyone wanted to help. Eva was on duty at two.

At twelve thirty, Eva had gone back to the nurses’ home to change. A man accosted her outside the door. He had already stopped three other girls but they had rebuffed him.

‘Brendan Beardsley,
Worthing Gazette
,’ he said. ‘Have you any comment to make on the new National Health Service which comes into being next year? I’m sure our readers would be very interested to know the feelings of an ordinary nurse.’

Eva smiled. All at once, she realised she had stumbled on a way to get Connie’s plight noticed. If she could get the reporter interested, it would be a whole heap more powerful than a few signatures. She slipped her arm through his and led him back out to the road.

‘Yesterday your newspaper ran a story about the little girl lost on High Salvington,’ she began. ‘Would you be interested to hear what happened to the heroic nurse who helped to rescue her?’

PC Noble had a problem with believing their story. He may have dismissed it altogether if had just been the gypsy, but Rev Jackson was a respected member of the community and when Captain Maxwell turned up to talk to him about the same matter, PC Noble realised that he would have to tread carefully. He didn’t hesitate to tell them that he’d had his eye on Saul ever since he’d turned up in the area and decided to change his name. ‘I thought to myself, what man with nothing to hide,’ said the policeman, ‘changes his name?’

‘Quite so,’ said Roger, although changing your Christian name didn’t seem to be such a big deal to him.

‘But after a few enquiries,’ PC Noble went on, ‘I discovered that Saul’s wife had committed suicide.’

‘She didn’t kill herself,’ said Kez. ‘He pushed her. I saw him.’

The policeman gave her a sceptical look. ‘I should be careful, young lady, making accusations like that.’

‘The point is,’ said Captain Maxwell, ‘we want the authority of the law present when we go to the house. We feel that this man should be questioned about the little girl.’

Half an hour later, PC Noble parked his police bicycle in the hedge, took off his bicycle clips and straightened his tunic. The others were already waiting in the lane. They had driven to the house in Isaac’s car and Captain Maxwell’s car.

‘I think it would be best if you leave me to handle this, sir,’ he said, leaning into Captain Maxwell’s window. ‘By coming to me, you’ve made it a police matter.’ To Eugène and the others he called out, ‘Wait here.’

Roger nodded his agreement reluctantly. In his opinion, Noble was as gullible as the rest of them when it came to Saul. He was annoyed that Eugène had got to the police house before he had. They might have been friends of Connie’s but he thought them all a bit shifty.

Eugène had never felt more anxious. Had Connie come here? He worried that she had got herself into deep water. Kez squeezed his arm encouragingly. ‘She’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘Connie is as tough as old boots.’

Roger was proved right almost immediately. PC Noble came back almost straight away. ‘Mrs Saul tells me Miss Dixon was here but she left about two hours ago,’ he said.

‘You did go in?’ said Roger.

‘I have no reason not to believe her, sir,’ said the policeman. ‘I can’t just go barging into people’s homes with no good reason.’

‘But what if she is in there?’

‘I’d need a warrant, sir, and there’s no reason to suppose that even if she is in there that she’s come to any harm.’

‘Did you ask to see Saul?’ Eugène asked.

‘He wasn’t there.’ Noble turned his bicycle round and touched his helmet. ‘I’ll be keeping an eye out, sir, don’t you worry. Now if I was you, I’d go home. She’s probably there waiting for you.’

Roger hit the steering wheel in frustration.

‘She’s still in there,’ said Kez.

‘You heard the man,’ said Roger. ‘She left. She probably wandered off somewhere to think.’

‘You’re not going to leave it at that, are you?’ cried Kez. She climbed down from the motor. ‘We have to make sure.’

Roger wound down the window. ‘Let’s go back to the nurseries and make sure she hasn’t gone home first.’ He started up the car.

‘I’m going in there,’ said Kezia, producing a few tired looking sprigs from her skirt pocket. ‘I’ll make out I’m selling lucky heather.’

‘No,’ said Roger firmly. ‘I think my idea is better.’

‘Fine,’ said Kez. She turned towards Eugène and her brother. ‘If I’m not back in an hour, come looking for me.’

‘Don’t be such an idiot,’ cried Roger. ‘You can’t go barging in there.’

‘Watch me,’ said Kez.

Roger watched her walk up the lane, turn onto the path and knock on the door. Mrs Saul, he presumed it was her, opened it and Kezia offered her the heather. The older woman shook her head but Kezia kept talking. A couple of seconds later, Kezia went inside. Eugène and Isaac used the opportunity to creep around the side of the house. Roger stared at the front door anxiously. What now? Kezia was gone for ages and by the time the door opened again, he was beginning to think he would have to drive back to the police station and get Noble again.

‘What on earth were you doing?’ he gasped as Kezia returned to his car and climbed in.

‘Telling her fortune,’ Kezia grinned. She opened her palm and showed him the ten bob note Aggie had given her.

‘For God’s sake …’ Roger began crossly.

‘You don’t think I believe in all that stuff, do you?’ she said. ‘I told her a load of rubbish and then Stan come in and turfed me out.’

‘So he was there!’ cried Roger. ‘Did he recognise you?’

‘Why should he?’ said Kez bitterly. ‘How many of them remember the kids they ruin? I was only eight when he got me.’

‘I’m sorry, Kez,’ said Roger genuinely. ‘That copper is a bloody idiot. He said he wasn’t there.’

They were quiet for a second or two, and then the door of the car opened and Eugène slid in the back seat. ‘What the hell …’ Roger began.

‘Are you all right, girl?’ Eugène’s voice was quiet but full of concern.

She shrugged. ‘If I’d had a knife, I’d have stuck it in his black heart.’

Eugène gripped her shoulder. ‘If Connie is in there,’ he said, ‘she’s most likely in the attic. Isaac’s gone to take a look.’

‘She’s in there all right,’ said Kez. ‘I saw her cardigan on the arm of the chair.’ She grinned. ‘I didn’t say a dicky-bird and it’s obvious they haven’t even noticed it’s still there.’

‘But you haven’t seen her for months,’ Roger protested. ‘How do you know it was hers?’

‘In case you haven’t noticed,’ said Kezia good-naturedly, ‘we girls don’t have a lot of clothes these days. Believe me, it was hers.’

‘Well spotted then,’ said Roger grudgingly. He turned towards Eugène. ‘You obviously know the woman. Why don’t you go in and demand Connie back?’

‘There’s no love lost between me and Aggie Saul,’ said Eugène with a shrug. ‘She was very upset when I refused to let her have extra coal during the big freeze.’

‘So what do we do now?’ said Kez.

‘My guess is he’ll get her out of there tonight,’ said Eugène.

‘Do you think he’ll kill her?’

Eugène nodded. ‘Yes but he’ll do it somewhere else. He’ll want it to look like suicide or something, especially now that he knows the police have been around.’

‘But she’ll kick up a fuss,’ said Kez. ‘How will …?’ She stopped in her tracks as if remembering and added, ‘He’ll give her something to drink. That’s what he did to me.’

‘You mean he’ll drug her and then carry her out?’ said Eugène.

‘Don’t you think that’s all a bit far-fetched?’ said Roger.

‘I can’t risk hanging about,’ said Eugène opening the car door again.

‘
You
can’t risk hanging about?’ Roger snapped. ‘I care about her too you know.’

Eugène hesitated. ‘Then help me find her!’

It was getting more difficult to see in the light. The sun was going down and the amber dusk was giving way to evening. Connie thought she heard a strange rustling sound and hid. Stan was coming back. After a minute or two of hiding under the stairs, she realised it wasn’t Stan. Perhaps it was an animal creeping about in the undergrowth outside. She wasn’t sure if the noise came from outside the door at the top of the stairs or the little window but when she came out of hiding, she called softly at the window a couple of times but it was quiet as the grave. It must have been a cat, she told herself. She’d spent some time looking at the book in the drawer and quickly realised that it contained a list of names. They didn’t mean anything until she came across two names she recognised, Sally Burndell and then her own. Her heart sank as she realised that these must be the people who had been the victims of the poison pen letters. On closer inspection she’d come across Mrs Ranger. Connie lowered herself onto the chair. Mrs Ranger had jumped off the end of Worthing pier at high tide. No one knew the reason why. She’d always seemed such a contented woman. There was no note either. It was a mystery. Could it be that … no, no, it didn’t bear thinking about. It would have been easy to give way to tears at that moment but instead, Connie pulled herself together. She still needed to find something, anything which would help her fight Stan when he came back. He would come back, she was absolutely sure of that and she had to keep hold of this book. It was evidence.

She looked at the preserves. She could throw a few of them at him, but she had a rotten aim. She looked around again. There was a low table under the stairs. She noticed a draught as she walked there and wondered if there was an opening somewhere. The air circulated nicely just here. The walls seemed solid although there was an air brick higher up the wall.

She lifted the cloth on the low table and discovered it wasn’t a table but a blanket box of some sort. Perhaps she could hide the book in there. Aunt Aggie mightn’t miss it straight away and with a bit of luck, Connie could get it to the police before she knew it was missing.