Perseverance Street (10 page)

‘Where did she go?’ he asked Eileen.

Eileen pointed down the corridor that led to double doors, then followed the usher through them. A policeman and other court officials followed them.

Through the doors was a staircase, from the top of which Lily could see two policemen on the floor below. She headed upstairs and was out of sight when the usher and Eileen came bursting through the door. The usher carried straight on and the policewoman flew down the stairs. Lily ran along a corridor, trying doors as she went. One was open. She took a cautious glance inside. It was a dark room containing a wooden table and six chairs. Still clutching Christopher she hid beneath the table, out of sight of anyone who chose to open the door and give the room no more than a cursory glance. After five minutes she heard voices in the corridor, one of them saying that she couldn’t have left the building otherwise she’d have been seen.

‘Check all
the unlocked doors.’

She held on to Christopher tightly, knowing it was just a question of time. If they knew she was definitely in the Town Hall they wouldn’t bother extending their search to the streets, and even if they did, how long before she was captured or had to give herself up? What she did know was that they were going to take her baby off her and put her in a loony bin.

Tears streamed down her cheeks. She tried to suppress her sobbing. The door to the room opened then, after no more than five seconds, closed. The searcher had given the room just a quick glance and had seen nothing. She clung to Christopher as the searching feet faded away in the distance. Lily’s hopes rose. Ten minutes went by during which time she’d just heard the odd hurried footsteps approaching – giving her a heart-stopping moment – but not slowing down and then passing. A door at the end of the corridor would bang and then nothing. This happened three times. She began to plan what she would do once outside the building. First she would go to the bank and draw out all her money. She had her bank book in her pocket. She always took it with her in case of emergencies and today had looked like being an emergency day. There was enough to keep her going for a while. Then she could track down Auntie Dee who lived in Shipley. She’d never been to her house and she hadn’t seen her since she and Larry got married. Auntie Dee, who wasn’t one for keeping her opinions to herself, had
had words
with Larry’s parents at the wedding reception. Dee had apologised to the newlyweds and subsequently thought it best she stay away and not make further trouble for them. She wasn’t a proper auntie, but she was the nearest Lily had to a relative. Auntie Dee worked on the markets, that’s how she’d find her. Auntie Dee would get this mess sorted out. Her plans were making progress when more feet arrived. A man’s voice shouted, ‘Have these rooms been checked?’ He sounded like a policeman. Lily’s heart began to pound.

‘I don’t
know,’ came a distant voice.

‘Does anyone know?’ The man sounded exasperated, his voice boomed along the corridor. ‘Is anyone keeping a check on what rooms have been searched and what haven’t? We could be here all day at this rate. Let’s start acting as if we know what we’re doing. I’ll do this side, you do that. WPC Morley, you stay in the corridor to catch her if she tries to escape – that’s if you can manage it after letting her go once already.’

‘I didn’t let her go, Sarge,’ protested Eileen. ‘I didn’t know she’d been given a custodial.’

‘Well you know now!’

Lily now hated this policeman who was dashing her hopes of freedom. Freedom for her and Christopher who was to be taken away from her by an efficient copper, whose face she’d never seen. She kissed Christopher on the forehead.

‘They’re going to take you away from me, my darling. But it won’t be for ever. We’ll be back together before you know it. What they’re doing isn’t right. Your mummy hasn’t done anything wrong. The world is full of bad people, like the Germans who took your daddy away. Now it’s our own people, who are just as bad.’

The
door opened again. This time it didn’t shut straight away. She saw boots come into the room. The big black shiny boots of a policeman. She held her breath but containing her sobbing was incredibly difficult. The boots walked all around the room, clumping against the worn parquet floor. They stopped in front of a window. She heard him sliding it open, then she heard him strike a match. She smelled tobacco smoke. He was sitting on the window ledge now, one foot on the floor, one foot dangling, enjoying his cigarette. Finding Lily was obviously the last thing on his mind. Maybe he’d been in court and had sympathy for her. Maybe luck was on her side. The world wasn’t entirely full of evil people like Hilda Muscroft and that horrible magistrate.

She kept absolutely quiet for the three minutes it took him to smoke his cigarette. Christopher had mercifully fallen asleep in her arms. In the outside corridors the sound of the searchers dwindled. They probably thought she’d made it out to the street. The boots were both back on the floor now and the window was sliding shut. She held her breath. Another few seconds and he’d be gone. The boots headed for the door and stopped. She could almost sense the brain, six feet above the boots, ticking away. Her own thoughts were trying to push him on his way.

Just go. Please go
.

She saw his legs bend. One knee rested on the floor, then a hand, then his face came into view. It was a young face. A face disappointed at finding her.

‘Oh, please,’ she said, ‘don’t tell on us.’

He stared at
her for a full five seconds, then got to his feet. He went outside the door. For a second she thought he’d heeded her plea. His shout was loud.

‘She’s in here, Sarge – Room thirty-seven.’

Voices echoed along the corridor. ‘We’ve got her. She’s in Room thirty-seven!’

There was an approaching rush of feet through the door. Faces appeared all around her but no one was making a move. One of the faces was Iredale’s, the magistrate who’d just condemned her to a psychiatric hospital. They stared at each other in silence until the hatred and defiance in Lily’s eyes forced him back to his feet. She looked down at Christopher, trying to memorise every tiny bit of his face. He woke up and smiled at her, or perhaps it was wind.

‘Mummy will come back to you, my darling,’ she whispered. ‘I promise.’

Legs and feet were all around her now. A strategy was being discussed about how to get her out from under the table without doing any harm to them or to her baby. No mention of not doing
her
any harm.

‘She’s a woman with a propensity for violence,’ she heard Iredale say.

‘No, I’m not,’ she sobbed. ‘You’re just too stupid to be able to see the truth.’

More people came into the room. The odd face bobbed down to take a look at her then quickly withdrew without speaking to her.

She screamed
hysterically, ‘What am I? Some monkey in a zoo that you’ve all come to gawp at? My husband’s been killed and my son stolen but I haven’t done anything. Why are you trying to hurt me?’

Her outburst brought them to silence. One voice that she recognised spoke. The owner of the voice bent down and spoke to her.

‘I think you’d better give Christopher to me. This can’t be doing him any good.’

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ sobbed Lily.

‘I happen to be a magistrate.’

‘A pal of the three stooges, no doubt. Was it you who put him up to having me sent away?’

Just for a brief second, before Godfrey Robinson, her late husband’s father, got to his feet, she saw guilt on his face. She’d hit the nail on the head.

‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ she screamed. ‘You persuaded them to lock me up so that you can have my son!’

Above the table there was an awkward silence. Several people had heard Lily’s accusation. She hadn’t finished.

‘I wish the Germans had won the war. They can’t have been any worse that you! And to think your son died for the likes of you!’

She heard Godfrey say, ‘Perhaps it’s best if I stay out of this for now. I’ll be outside.’ Lily watched his feet leave the room. Eileen bent down and smiled at her.

‘Lily, we’re not going to drag you and Christopher out of there, but it’ll be better all round if you come out of your own accord. It’s not good for Christopher isn’t all this.’

‘What’s going to happen to him?’

‘Nothing bad. He’ll
be placed in good care until you’re feeling well again, I promise you.’

‘Until I’m well? There’s nothing wrong with me that giving me my Michael back won’t cure. Why is everyone trying to hurt me? All I want is my boy back. Is that so unnatural?’

‘No, Lily, it’s not unnatural, but unfortunately you’ve broken the law.’

‘So, I’ll pay a fine. I don’t care how much.’

It was obvious that the policewoman was feeling sympathetic to Lily’s cause. She got to her feet. Lily heard her ask, ‘What exactly was her punishment? Why is she acting like this?’

A voice Lily didn’t recognise said, ‘She’s been given an indefinite sentence in a psychiatric unit.’

‘Which means her baby’s to be taken away from her,’ said Eileen. ‘All this on top of losing her other son. And you lot are wondering why she’s acting strange.’

‘It’s not for you to be giving opinions,’ said Iredale testily. ‘I’ll thank you to do your job and retrieve the woman and child from under this table.’

Eileen sighed and squatted down again. ‘Come on, Lily,’ she said gently. ‘You can’t win this one. Give Christopher to me.’

Lily stared at her for a long moment, realising the utter futility of her predicament. Sobbing loudly, she kissed Christopher on his forehead and handed him over to the WPC. Then she heard Iredale’s voice as he spoke to the male constables in the room.

‘Right, get that damned woman out from under that table and handcuff her, using whatever force is necessary.’

Lily felt
a hand behind her grab her leg and yank her out, roughly. Her hands were forced behind her back and handcuffs snapped on to her wrists. She heard Eileen’s voice call out.

‘There’s no need for all that!’

Iredale shouted at her. ‘Quiet, Constable, and hand the child over to its grandfather! He’s outside.’

‘No!’ Lily screamed. ‘Don’t give my Christopher to that bloody man! He doesn’t love him.’

‘Get her out of here,’ barked Iredale, ‘and send for a Black Maria.’

Lily’s new home
was Room 36, Ecclestone House Hospital, out on the Yorkshire Moors, seven miles northwest of Haworth. It was a secure hospital funded by the government but it had a poor record for curing the inmates who were mostly a mixture of alcoholics, depressives, and people with learning difficulties who had found themselves on the wrong side of the law. A few of them had been there for years. The suicide rate was high and never publicised. Working at Ecclestone House was not the most sought-after occupation – reflected in the quality of employees the job attracted. Some of them were little better than the inmates they were caring for; particularly Dr Freeman who ran the hospital.

From the minute Lily came through the door, handcuffed to a police constable, Dr Freeman had his designs on her. Beneath all the angst etched into her face he saw a beautiful young woman. Her body was a bit plump around the belly but he knew this was because she’d recently had a baby. This was OK. He never took advantage during the first month. A woman needed to be gently subdued by drugs and what, in his opinion, was his charming bedside manner, before he joined them in their bed. It was
all part of the therapy, he told them. He’d been doing it for years and no one had ever complained. Few could actually remember the incidents clearly enough to make a complaint and his position would be so difficult to refill that no one would take the word of a criminal woman above his. The lucky women, the ones who spent the least time there, were the plain ones.

Lily was shivering with acute distress as she was taken up to her room. Freeman walked behind and sent a nurse to bring a strong sedative. ‘This one needs to sleep,’ he told the police officer. ‘It’s my suspicion that she’s a manic depressive but I’ll know more tomorrow when she wakes up after a good night’s sleep.

What he didn’t say was that Lily wasn’t due to wake up completely for some time to come. She lay on her bed and watched as Freeman emptied a syringe into her arm as he murmured soothing words into her ear.

‘You’ll be all right, my dear. This will ease the pain you’re suffering.’

She didn’t like this man. Not too long ago he wouldn’t have got away with injecting her without giving her a detailed explanation of what it was and why it was necessary. Not today. Her defences were shattered. They’d taken away everything that was dear to her and now they were sending her to sleep. She was hoping it would be a good long sleep, preferably an endless one.

She was drugged into a haze of semi-oblivion which would dry her tears and dull the memory of her two sons, her dead husband, Hilda Muscroft, Vera Pickersgill and the Oldroyds. She would wake up each morning not quite knowing where she was, what time it was, what day
it was, where she had come from and why she was here.

She quickly became compliant, quiet and didn’t eat much. In many ways she was Dr Freeman’s ideal patient. A patient out of favour with the police, with no close friends, no living relatives that anyone knew of, and very pretty.

Lily had been there a week when Freeman began making his late-night visits to her. She was vaguely aware of someone being there but she’d been pumped too full of psychoactive drugs to know who or even worry about it. On occasions she might have sensed her bedclothes being pulled back and her nightdress being lifted over her thighs. She was wearing nothing underneath and normally she’d have kicked and screamed at such a vile intruder but she didn’t. She just lay there, out of it, as his hands wandered all over her body, into parts hitherto known only to herself and her late husband. Dr Freeman felt she wasn’t ready to be penetrated, but that time would come. For this he needed her to be more awake, more responsive. In the meantime he made do with straddling her and relieving his lust all over her naked stomach. He was always careful to wipe all evidence of his ejaculation from her before any nurse saw it. Lily was never really aware of what he was doing. There’d be a time when she’d become aware of it but she’d be so compliant as to not complain to him or anyone. Freeman knew this.