The Four Streets (33 page)

‘The local community has been paralysed by the news, because the priest was a well-known figure around Liverpool. He had a particular calling to aid children who were suffering in poor communities, as demonstrated by his work at local schools and the children’s hospital.’

On Monday morning, while Kathleen had her cup of tea with the Granada TV rentals man and sliced him a piece of fruit loaf with the meat knife, he told her all the fanciful theories that were flying around the four streets about who had done for Father James. Naturally, not one of them included Maura and Tommy’s house, where the Father had been treated like a saint. Or their own house, where the Father never came. They were all safe in their secret. And a secret it would remain, she hoped.

Meanwhile, over at the school, the police were talking to the children in the morning assembly, asking questions about Father James.

‘Did any of you see anything unusual on the night Father James was murdered?’ asked Howard of the rows of children sitting cross-legged on the wooden parquet floor in front of him.

A complete dead end to their inquiries had driven him, under pressure from their Chief Superintendent, to try a more novel approach to gathering information.

Simon had moaned and groaned and resisted as much as possible. He was not keen on change. He also felt embarrassed. Sister Evangelista was openly crying. Simon had been taught by the nuns when he himself was a boy. He didn’t like to see women weep. Nuns were a special breed of women, so he hated that even more.

Howard had considered this a smart idea when he first thought of it; at the very least it would look good when he reported back to the Super and help him on his race to become a sergeant. But now that he was here, standing in front of so many sombre faces, he wished he was anywhere else.

One little boy was wriggling and enthusiastically thrust up his hand.

Nondescript, slightly dirty, wearing a sleeveless pullover with no shirt underneath, despite the cold, and with a huge hole in the front, with what looked like half a ball of wool unravelled and hanging down in long loose threads exposing his skin underneath, he had been squirming on the floor since the police officers walked in. The tide mark across his neck was as black as the leather on his shoes, which were three sizes too big and only just still attached to the soles.

‘Here we go,’ said Simon disdainfully, ‘he saw Donald Duck going into mass.’

‘I did, I did!’ shouted little Paddy, punching the air with his hand excitedly – innocently trying to curry favour with Sister Evangelista, who scared him so much he would do anything to be in her good books. ‘I saw Uncle Jerry running up the back entry in the middle of the night.’

Simon and Howard both stared at the scruffy boy, wriggling about on the floor with the unwashed hair and grubby face.

‘Paddy,’ said Sister Evangelista in a stern voice, ‘the officers have no time for your nonsense. Shut up, boy, and sit straight in your line.’

By the time she had reached the word ‘line’, Sister Evangelista was almost screaming. Sister Evangelista had no time for dirty children and must have told Peggy a hundred times, cleanliness was next to godliness. The boy smelt and had head lice, and she had no patience with him whatsoever.

The shock and horror of Father James’s death had affected them all. The unanswered questions, along with revulsion at the manner of it, had set their nerves on edge.

When the police officers had told Sister they wanted to speak to the children at assembly, she had almost refused. She had barely slept, as confusing thoughts and questions to which she had no answer kept her awake well into the small hours.

Simon and Howard looked at each other. ‘May we borrow your office, Sister?’ asked Howard, who was already motioning to Paddy to join him at the front.

The children sat still and unspeaking as they watched the policemen hold open the large wooden and glass doors for Paddy to pass through from the hall on the way to Sister Evangelista’s office. There was no need for the teachers or nuns to remonstrate with those who wriggled as though they had ants in their pants. Everyone was silent and still as they stared at the departing backs of the tall policemen.

Alice was taking her knitting out from behind the cushion on the comfy chair, which was where it lived, when she heard three loud, ominous knocks on the front door.

The Granada man was packing away into his case his little black book and large grey bag of sixpences, and Kathleen was on her way to the sink with the cups and plates, when they all stopped dead in their tracks and stared towards the front door.

‘Blimey, that’s an important knock,’ said the Granada man. ‘It’ll be a vacuum cleaner salesman. I saw the Electrolux men on Vauxhall Road yesterday.’

Kathleen and Alice looked at each other without a word. Alice slipped her knitting back behind the cushion and walked purposefully to the front door to open it. She was growing in confidence every day.

Down on the docks, the men were unloading the merchant ship, the
Cotopaxi
, which had sailed in from Ecuador early that morning. As he was one of the shorter and tubbier men on the docks, Tommy’s feet had left the quay as he jumped up to catch a guide rope for a bag of jute, just above his head and out of his reach. Tommy travelled through the air for the twenty feet it took him to reach Jerry. It was time for their ciggie break and Tommy thought it was about time Jerry knew. As his feet touched the ground again, he looked up towards the jute sack and his eye was caught by two policemen talking to the guard at the top of the steps.

He saw the guard point in their direction, as both policemen tipped their helmet peaks in a gesture of thanks and began to descend the steps.

As Tommy landed, he pushed the rope into Jerry’s hand and squeezed it tight, pushing his nails into Jerry’s skin, forcing Jerry to look at him in surprise.

‘Let go of me hand, you homo,’ Jerry said in annoyance as he tried to take the rope from Tommy.

‘The fecking bizzies are coming down the steps, Jer,’ Tommy almost spat at him. ‘If it’s us they is after, neither of us say a fecking word. If we don’t say nothing, they don’t have nothing.’

There was an urgency to Tommy’s voice. They both knew which was the guilty of the two, but Tommy also knew they would never let one another down.

Jerry didn’t glance at the steps, but looked Tommy straight in the eye as he said, ‘Aye, right, to be sure I will say nothin’ now, neither of us, nothin’.’

They took a long hard look at each other, as they heard Howard’s voice ring out behind them, ‘Oi, Jerry Deane, we want a word with you.’

Jerry and Tommy clasped thumbs briefly, then Jerry let go of the rope and turned round.

Alice walked up Brigie’s path with ease. Her heart no longer beat faster when she stepped out from her lonely world. She was still not one for small talk and she knew that no one would ever seek her out for a shopping trip to St John’s market, or indulge in baby chatter, but she did at least feel as though she was somewhere she belonged.

Brigie had been pacing up and down the kitchen floor all morning with a teething baby daughter who screamed louder than the rest put together. She didn’t hear the back door open and could have dropped the baby when she saw Alice walk through it. Alice smiled conspiratorially in greeting, closed the door and then, from under her skirt, produced an almost empty whiskey bottle.

Brigie walked over to the kettle. This was going to be interesting.

Simon and Howard had pounded Jerry with repetitive questions for almost two hours, and yet he had remained silent.

The police station, old, large and forbidding, with its distinctive blue light over the door, was in Whitechapel. The cells were small and noisy and, on a Saturday night, full to overflowing with the same prostitutes who had spent so many nights in the cells that they called Whitechapel station home.

Jerry had been held in one such cell for four hours and, so far, hadn’t said a word. He was trying the patience of Howard and Simon, who decided to take a break.

They took themselves off to the station canteen for a drink and a game of billiards, to help them decide what to do next. They were coming up against a brick wall. With the best will in the world, no judge was ever going to accept the word of a filthy, witless little boy who obviously wasn’t the sharpest knife in the box. And what did they have anyway? Under questioning in Sister Evangelista’s office, the kid had moved from having definitely seen his Uncle Jerry to possibly having seen his Uncle Jerry.

They were holding Jerry in the cell on spurious grounds, but once they had him in the cell, he suddenly reeked of culpability for no other reason than he wouldn’t speak.

‘If he was innocent, he would talk and tell us why he was running down the entry,’ said Howard.

Simon, who rarely got anything right, pulled on his cigarette and, as the smoke swirled around his face, replied, ‘Aye, I smell a stinking great rat all right. That man is as guilty as hell. The problem is, how? Why? What’s the motive? The Sister said he didn’t even go to the church.’

‘We need to at least pin a motive on him soon or we will have to let him walk,’ said Howard, who was not looking forward to the prospect.

The Super had been delighted that at least they had someone in the cell to question for the mystery murder of the priest. Simon and Howard had been feeling pressure as if it was coming from someone much higher up in the force.

‘Let’s go back in,’ said Simon. ‘Let’s start the good cop, bad cop routine and see if that makes him start talking.’

‘We will,’ said Howard, ‘but I will tell you this: we may have no motive and we may have nothing other than that feckless kid but all the same, that man reeks of guilt.’

By the time Tommy arrived home from work, the four streets were buzzing with the news that Jerry was being held by the police. It had been the longest day’s work while he had counted down the minutes until he could run back up the steps and confer with Maura and Kathleen. When Maura told him what Alice had done, he felt a shiver run down his spine – and then, ‘Jeez, Maura,’ he shouted, ‘why didn’t ye wait for me to get fecking home?’

Tommy was having trouble weighing up the consequences of Alice’s actions. Maura had never known Tommy to swear as much as he had since the worst night of their lives; in fact she had heard him shout on only a handful of occasions during their married life. Maura needed reinforcements and sent Kitty across the road to fetch Kathleen and Alice.

‘Calm down, Tommy,’ said Kathleen with authority, as soon as she came in. ‘It’s a grand idea if Brigie and Sean will play along with Peggy and Paddy, but you need to get your head together and go and see Paddy. It will work only if ye all agree.’

‘Let me get this right,’ said Tommy. ‘Ye are all asking Sean, Paddy and meself to go down to the police station and say Jerry was sneaking down to Sean’s house for a card school and to drink up the wedding whiskey, whilst ye lot was asleep in ye beds?’

Maura, Kathleen and Alice nodded. When it was put into Tommy’s words, coldly and with an edge of scorn, it didn’t sound so good.

Tommy exploded. He and Jerry had a pact, to talk to no one.

‘Ye just couldn’t keep ye’s gobs shut, could ye,’ he shouted. ‘Me and Jer, tell no one, we decided. If we can keep it that way they have nothing and nowt, and youse have told the whole fecking four streets. I’m done for, Maura, I’m a fecking goner now.’

Tommy was losing control. Maura felt scared. Normally, Tommy was putty in her hands; she had never seen him like this before. His anger seemed to have erupted from nowhere. She felt the blood drain from her face as she began to think Alice had done something very, very stupid.

Both sets of twins and Angela began to cry, setting Niamh off too. Kitty had no idea what was going on, but she gathered up the children and took them across the road to Nellie, who was sitting in front of the TV on her own. Joseph was already in bed.

Kitty felt a pang of jealousy shoot through her. She had never in her life had a room to herself. As one of seven, she could only dream of such a luxury.

Nellie had no idea what was going on either, but the whispering between Kathleen and Alice had set her on edge. She knew something was badly wrong.

They had told her Jerry was helping the police, but Nellie couldn’t understand that. Helping them to do what?

Nellie got up from her chair and took the biscuit tin out of the cupboard. She and Kitty gave a biscuit to each of the little ones to encourage them to stop crying. Kitty felt jealous again. The biscuit tin was rarely full in her house.

When the children had calmed down, both girls sat in a comfy chair together, with their arms round each other. The rest of the Doherty brood sat on the mat and they all stared at the TV, which offered an escape from the frightening atmosphere around them. Nellie felt more settled than she had all evening, now that she was no longer alone, but in the company of her lifelong friends.

Sean, who was over six feet tall, had had to remove his cap as he bent to enter Tommy’s kitchen. He was a mystery to every man on the street. Sean was as broad as he was tall, a fine specimen who spent his weekends at the boxing club. He worked on the docks by day and was in the boxing ring by night.

‘Ye can’t blame him,’ Tommy had once said to Maura. ‘If I had that many daughters, I’d be on a ship to Mexico, never mind the bloody boxing club.’

Sean had a formidable reputation and it went back as far as his street-fighting days in Tipperary. The word on the four streets was that Sean had arrived in Liverpool whilst on the run from the Gardai for having nearly beaten a man to death in a Tipperary pub brawl. No one dare ask Sean if the rumour were true.

‘He beats the shite out of anyone who dares go near him in that ring,’ laughed Tommy, after he and Jerry had gone along to a match to support their friend, ‘the big man’.

And yet he and Brigie had produced only daughters, and lots of them. Eight little red-headed females in one house. Sean was living proof of the street folklore that it was the women who decided the sex of the baby. Unless, of course, she produced boys – and then it was all down to the virility of the man.