Rough Justice (27 page)

‘You’re saying she was going with another man, Miss Flanagan?’

George nodded for her. ‘Yeah. Embarrassing as it is to admit it, it was a bloke right under Dad’s nose. Martin Lovell his name is. Lives across the landing from us at number fifty-seven.’

‘It’s a real disgrace to my father’s memory,’ chipped in Lily with a loud sniff.

‘There, there, Lil,’ said George, patting his sister on the back of her hankie-grasping hand. ‘He’s got a good job, you see, so it suits a little gold-digger like her right down to the ground. First she bled Dad dry and then she moved onto the next mug to fall for her big-eyed act.’

Unable to keep the look of self-satisfaction off her face, Lily dealt the final blow. ‘This is really hard to say, sir, but neither of us would be surprised if our dad wasn’t her kids’ real father. I mean, who knows when you put it about like she does?’

The officers exchanged a look, and the taller of the two said, ‘We appreciate you taking the trouble to come forward with this information, Miss and Mr Flanagan. We’ve made our notes, which we’ll be considering – thank you.’

‘Is that it?’ asked Lily. ‘Don’t you need to know anything else about her?’

‘We’ll be in touch if there are any further questions, miss.’

The shorter of the two officers sat on his colleague’s desk looking out at the river.

‘So, what do you think? I know we’ve had our suspicions about those two, but I honestly don’t know what to make of them.’ He curled his lip in disgust. ‘They’ve only just buried their father.’

‘You know what they say – it takes all sorts. When I lost my dad – God rest his soul – I was beside myself, but he was a good bloke. I’m not so sure what I’d have thought of this Flanagan. Sounds as if he was a right bit of work. And, think about it, there’s bound to be a few bob floating about. Market stalls, gambling – there’s got to be. You know what vultures people can be once they get a sniff of dough in their nostrils.’

‘But it still doesn’t seem very likely to me that she’d be going with someone else. She might have been Flanagan’s fancy piece, but if she was as scared of him as that neighbour of hers’ – he looked in his notebook – ‘that old girl, Ada Tanner, reckoned she was, then she’d hardly have messed around with someone on her own doorstep, now would she.’

‘If she was brazen enough to live with one feller, and him old enough to be her father, what’s stopping her going off with any number of others?’

‘I suppose.’

‘We’d better follow it up.’

‘I don’t reckon it would hurt to have a quick chat. And I would love to rub Leman Street and Whitechapel stations’ noses in it by coming up with the goods.’

‘You and me both.’

Standing outside the police station in the narrow Wapping street, shivering slightly in the breeze that was blowing up from the river, Lily pulled her coat more tightly about her, but she wasn’t complaining, in fact she was feeling rather pleased with herself. ‘Fancy a drink, George?’

‘Don’t mind if I do, Lil. How about the Grapes, that suit you?’

‘Lovely, George.’

Nell felt the closest to what could have been described as light-hearted for a very long time as she walked across the courtyard of the Buildings. She had managed to put George and his vileness somewhere to the back of her mind where she didn’t have to think about it – for now at least – she had bags full of shopping and Tommy and Dolly were each holding a hokey-pokey ice cream. Despite her worries about money, after the tensions of the past few days the stop-me-and-buy-one man on his tricycle had been too hard for Nell to resist. She hated the children always going without, and loved the idea of being able to treat them for once, especially knowing that they still had their half-crown to spend. Then they had bumped into Martin who had been on his way out somewhere, but had insisted on turning back and carrying her shopping home for her. She had hesitated for no longer than a moment – where was the harm? It was still daylight and the children were with her; she had nothing to feel ashamed about. He was only being a kind neighbour . . .

‘You shouldn’t be wasting your time helping me, Martin,’ she said with a soft smile, as she handed over the bags.

‘It’s no trouble at all, Nell. They weigh nothing for a big tough bloke like me,’ he said with a grin. ‘I’m a proper athlete.’

‘Yeah,’ joined in Tommy. ‘You could have won every single race in the Olympics.’

Martin stopped on the spot. ‘I wouldn’t have had anything to do with these Olympics, Tom.’

‘Why not?’

‘They were run by people who weren’t very nice. They did what this horrible bloke Hitler told them to do. You wouldn’t like him. He’s really bad.’

‘Will he come over here?’ asked Tommy.

‘Course he won’t. I’m so tough, I frighten the life out big old bullies like him.’ Martin then deliberately lurched forward and pretended to trip over as they started up the stairway, making the children roar with laughter.

‘Tough as old boots, me,’ said Martin, raising the shopping bags high above his head.

‘You can stay down here and play out if you like, kids,’ Nell said. ‘I’ll call down for you over the balcony when your tea’s done. How about that?’

Martin moved closer and whispered in her ear – so close she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. ‘OK if I give them a few coppers to go round Sarah’s?’

‘No, Martin, I don’t want you to waste your money on us. I mean, on them.’

‘How about a penny between them then?’

‘Thanks, that’s ever so kind. But my friend
Sylvia’s treated them already, and they’ve had their cornets.’

Martin winked. ‘But they don’t get treats that often, do they, Nell?’

‘No, no they don’t.’

‘Go on, let me. I really want to.’

‘OK. Thank you. But just a penny between them, all right?’

Martin and Nell reached the top landing, and Nell held out her hands for the bags. Why did she worry so much? Everything was fine. It had to be.

‘I can’t tell you, Martin, what a relief it was to be able to treat Tommy and Dolly and then to go out and buy them some decent food. You know, not just enough for a bit of tea for them, but enough to fill them up. I’m used to having an empty belly, but they’re not, the poor little things. These past weeks have been so hard. But it might all be sorting itself out. That friend of mine, Sylvia, has lent me some money, and I’ve got a job to start next week when the children go back to school. It’s only in a laundry, but I’ve told them I can do office work, and I think they must be interested in me because like I was telling Sylvia they said that if they get any vacancies, they might let me do a test to see if I’m good enough for the office. That would be really good, because then I’d earn enough money to get a place to live for me and the kids, somewhere all to ourselves. I know I’m lucky having somewhere for them to live now, but I don’t like living here with, you know, them two.’

Nell looked hurriedly away. She hadn’t thought – say they were still indoors and they saw her standing out here with Martin?

‘I’m ever so sorry, Martin, I don’t know what’s got into me, running off at the mouth like that, but I’ve—’

‘You mustn’t ever be sorry to me about anything, Nell. You remember what I said to you before. I still mean it. We can leave here whenever you like. We can leave here and go anywhere. Together. Me, you and the kids.’

Nell swallowed hard and took the bags from him, her hands brushing against his, making her blush and feel the way she did when he had touched his finger to her lips. ‘I’ve got to get on now, Martin. Thanks for your help.’

‘Hello, Mrs Flanagan.’

As one, Nell and Martin looked over to the stairwell. Halfway up from the landing below, moving closer by the moment, were two police officers, the ones who had come to tell Nell about finding Stephen’s body – the same ones who had come back to speak to her, and who had then turned up at the funeral yesterday. Why wouldn’t they leave her alone?

‘We’d like to have a word with you, if you don’t mind. And this gentleman, he might as well stay too.’ The taller officer flipped open his notebook. ‘Because I presume you’re Martin Lovell from number fifty-seven.’

Half an hour later, Nell, still in the black mourning coat and hat that Sylvia had bought her, was sitting at the kitchen table across from Martin looking as if she’d been cast in stone. At least the twins hadn’t been in to witness what had happened.

‘Nell?’

Martin reached across to her, but she pulled her hand away.

‘You heard what they were saying,’ she said, wondering just how much worse things could be. ‘They think Stephen was murdered, don’t they? What if they think it was me? They’ll take my children away. And what will the twins have to say if they find out they’ve been here again?’ She leapt to her feet. ‘You’ve got to leave, Martin. If they come home and find you sitting here like you own the place they’ll go mad.’

‘Who cares about what they think?’

‘I do. Me, I care. Martin, you have no idea the trouble I would be in.’ She could taste the fear in her mouth as she thought of George.

‘I’ve got plenty of ideas, Nell, but mine are good ones. And that one we were talking about – that’s the best one I’ve ever had.’ Slowly, Martin rose to his feet and walked round the table to stand next to her. ‘You, me and the kids, Nell, let’s go off somewhere to live together as a family. I meant every word of it when I said I’d sort this out for you, and I did. Please, Nell, marry me. I love you so much.’

Nell shook her head. ‘What do you mean, you sorted it out?’

‘I sorted it out. For you. So you didn’t have to be scared of him ever again.’

She backed away from him. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘I was there, the night he died.’

‘You can’t mean
you killed him
?’

‘No, Nell, it was an accident. I only meant to frighten him. To give him a taste of his own medicine so he’d stop hurting you. We had a fight and we were struggling over this piece of wood, and I must have hit him harder than I thought. It could just as easily have been me who was found in the river. Think how things would have turned out then.’

‘But that wasn’t what happened, was it? It was him who died. And now they’ll catch up with you and hang you. You’ve got to get away, Martin, before they come back again.’

Martin grasped her hand. ‘Nell, come with me.’

‘You’ve got to stop this, Martin. Listen to me. You have got to get away from here. You heard what those policemen were saying. How long have we known each other? Were we close friends? You know what they meant. And they mentioned Ada Tanner more than once. Who knows what rubbish she’s been telling them?’

‘I can’t leave without you, Nell.’

‘You have to. If you don’t then everything will just get worse – for both of us. They’ll hang you, Martin, can’t you see that?’

‘Nell, I love you.’

‘If you won’t do this for yourself, Martin, then do it for me.’

Nell didn’t know why she did it, but she reached out, took him in her arms and kissed him – a long, heartbreaking kiss. Then she pushed him away from her.

She started crying.

She took her handkerchief from her pocket – a pretty, flower-embroidered linen square that Sylvia had given her – and was about to wipe her eyes, but then she changed her mind.

Nell held out the handkerchief. ‘Goodbye, Martin; take this, something to remember me by. Now go. Do this for me.’

‘Nell—’

‘They’re onto you, Martin. I couldn’t bear it if they caught you. Please, do it for both of us.’

Martin spent the next seven hours walking around aimlessly and then drinking in a pub on the Isle of Dogs well away from anyone who knew him, only leaving the warm fug of the pub to make a call from the telephone box on the corner. He waited until it was dark and then made his way back to Turnbury Buildings.

He let himself into the flat with all the care of a cat burglar. He could hear his father’s rhythmic snoring coming from the main bedroom, and his mother’s soft moans as she dreamed the night away in what had once been the room that had belonged to his older sister before she had married and left home so her new husband could find work. It was the room his mother now chose to sleep in.

It made Martin so sad to see his parents like this, and none of it their fault, but, for now, he was just grateful that they were asleep.

He went into the kitchen and found a string-handled brown paper carrier bag printed with the legend
Sarah and David Meckel purveyors of fine groceries
that his mum had brought home from Sarah’s shop, and then went to his bedroom.

He lifted the corner of the mattress and took
out the sock that contained the money he had been saving so scrupulously. It was intended for his parents, something to give them when he eventually left home to set up in a place of his own and when he would no longer be in a position to help them quite so much. But it wasn’t going to be as straightforward as that – not now.

He counted the money out into three piles – one for his parents, one for him, and one for Nell.

Then he took half of his own pile and added half of that to Nell’s and half to his parents’. He took some clothes from his chest of drawers and stuffed them into the carrier bag.

Next he put his share of the money in the inside pocket of his jacket, and his parents’ share on the kitchen table wrapped in a note that he had written on one of the scraps of paper that his mother kept in the kitchen drawer – as she always said, ‘just in case’. The note read:

He then folded Nell’s money inside another piece of the scrap paper, making it into a little packet
that almost resembled an envelope, and wrote on the front:

He slipped out of the flat and onto the landing, and stood there for a long moment before finally putting the packet through Nell’s letter box, praying that she would be up before Stephen Flanagan’s twins.