The Penningtons (16 page)

Minutes later the idea came to her. Safety in numbers. She would ask her sister-in-law to come and stay with her for a few days. Then there would be three of them in the house and if the son tried anything they would outnumber him.

When approached, however, Dilys was not willing to stay with them. Her voice on the telephone was high with indignation. ‘Come and stay? Are you mad, Hettie? Haven’t I been through enough already – first in my own house and then here with Montague? Why should I put myself through anything else?’

Hettie cursed her stupidity. She had been a fool to ask.

Dilys said, ‘Why don’t you come to me? That would make more sense, surely. We could go back to my house. I can’t face many more days here with Montague and the wretched Daisy. She does her best but . . .’

‘But suppose this man—’

‘He’s not likely to come back here, is he? You and Albert are the only ones he hasn’t upset and you’re the ones to blame!’

‘I’m not to blame! It was nothing to do with me.’

‘You’re right, Hettie. I’m sorry. That was unfair of me. Look, come to me and we’ll offer Miss Gray money to stay overnight for, say, one week. If we share the cost we can make it worth her while. She can’t be that well off, can she? Just nights. Safety in numbers!’

‘We–ell.’ Hettie thought rapidly. ‘If she’ll come, I’ll come. Let me know as soon as possible.’

Hettie went back into the dining room where Albert was enjoying a large helping of currant duff with custard. My God! she thought. You’d eat at your own funeral, given the chance! Aloud she explained that Dilys had asked her to go and stay.

‘And you said “yes”, I presume.’ His expression was cold but Hettie was past caring. She would stay with Dilys and it would be a sort of holiday and a chance to get to know her better. They had never been close although they had found some common ground in their dislike of the wonderful Cressida-who-could-do-no-wrong!

The knots in her stomach were disappearing and she felt her fear lessening. Assuming that the promise of easy money would persuade Miss Gray to sleep there for a week, Hettie felt much better and went into her dressing room and began to pack.

EIGHT

T
hree days passed and the day of the Saturday soup kitchen arrived. A highly nervous Dilys waited in the Drill Hall for the distribution of food to begin. She was accompanied by a plain-clothes policeman who now stood with her, just out of sight of the window. They were discussing what she must do if she saw the man they suspected.

‘This Stanley Pennington,’ he asked. ‘Run through the description again, please.’

‘Tall, thin, unkempt-looking with intense eyes.’ Dilys searched her memory for some more helpful details. Thin and unkempt could apply to many of the men. ‘He’ll be carrying his own bowl . . . and he was wearing a very long coat. Shabby with no buttons . . .’

‘Hair colour?’

‘I thought I’d told you that already. It’s thick and brown . . . mid-brown you could call it. He had a sort of beard . . .’

‘He might have shaved it off.’

‘Possibly.’ Dilys shrugged. ‘And if I see him approaching me in the queue I must put down the ladle and tidy my hair – that’s the signal – and you’ll come out and I’ll point to him . . .’

‘That’s right. You finger him and I’ll have him in handcuffs before you can blink! No time for him to scarper. I don’t want you to worry yourself, Mrs Maynard. It’ll all be over in a minute or two. Then we’ll have him behind bars and you can all sleep easy again.’ He gave her a ‘thumbs up’ sign and grinned cheerfully.

Dilys gave him a weak smile. She had no real confidence in the plan and feared that if Stanley guessed what was about to happen he would certainly struggle and might make a run for it and might easily outrun the policeman. If he escaped capture he would know that she had ‘fingered him’, as the policeman so crudely put it. She would then be even more vulnerable. It was essential that he was caught and immediately put behind bars.

Miss Gray had agreed to sleep in the house for a few days but it was costing money that Dilys would have resented as outrageous in any other circumstances. Still, she could hardly complain if the woman would be sharing the risks with her and Hettie. Miss Gray’s invalid brother had been extremely reluctant to let her do it and increasing the payment had been the only way to earn his approval.

Marguerite glanced at the large clock on the wall and said, ‘Well now, ladies, we must make a start.’

They took up their positions and someone opened the door. Within seconds those first in the queue were jostling for position and demanding to know what was on offer. An old man with one sleeve pinned up looked enquiringly at Dilys.

‘What ith it, mithuth?’ he asked through several broken teeth.

She forced a bright smile. ‘Potato and onion,’ she told him, ‘with some bits of ham thrown in for good measure. Very tasty. The alternative –’ she indicated someone further along the tables – ‘is beef gruel.’

He made his choice known by holding out his bowl and she emptied the ladle into it. ‘Don’t forget the bread,’ she urged from habit although no one had ever done such a thing. She snatched a glance along the queue in search of Stanley but there was no sign of him. If he was present he must have changed his appearance and she did not know whether to be pleased or sorry. If he did put in an appearance, apprehending him would cause a scene which would no doubt find its way into the local paper which would be embarrassing. If he didn’t come it meant he was still free to wreak havoc on their lives.

Marguerite whispered, ‘Any sign of him?’

‘Not so far but I don’t—’

She was interrupted by the next person in the queue. ‘What you got today then?’

Dilys recognized the deaf woman and described the soup in a loud clear voice. ‘It’s very nice, Mrs Carter,’ she urged.

‘I’ll ’ave some,’ she replied. ‘I ’ope it’s nice and ’ot. Warms the cockles of your ’eart, soup does, but not when it’s lukewarm. I can’t abide tepid soup.’

Dilys sneaked another glance at the door and for a moment her heart almost stopped beating. A tall thin man had come into the hall and, contrary to instructions, she stared at him. But he wore a hat jammed down over his hair, the wide brim hiding his face . . . and he carried nothing in his hands. Did the absence of a bowl mean it was not him?

Seeing her reaction Marguerite looked at him. ‘Is that the one?’ she whispered.

‘I don’t know. I don’t think so . . . and yet it could be . . .’ Gripped by indecision she watched as the queue shuffled past and the man drew nearer until he stood in front of her. Suddenly she recognized the very long buttonless coat and her throat dried. It was him! For a moment she was frozen with fear but then recalled the policeman’s instructions and put down the ladle. As her hands went up to tidy her hair the policeman leaped forward, rushed towards him and grabbed hold of his arm.

‘Got you!’ he cried. He jerked him from the queue and pushed him roughly against the wall. There was an immediate outcry as people scattered in alarm and then tried to reclaim their places in the queue.

Marguerite said, ‘They’ve caught him!’ and gave Dilys’s shoulder a congratulatory pat.

Dilys, unable to believe it was all over, drew a long shuddering breath. The man was now in handcuffs and the policeman beckoned her over. Abandoning her post at the table, Dilys crossed the room and arrived just in time to see the policeman remove the man’s hat. Stepping back hurriedly, she gasped, ‘Oh no!’ because the man’s head was covered with short ginger hair. ‘It’s not him!’

He began to laugh.

Confused, Dilys turned to the policeman. ‘But he’s wearing the coat! The long coat without buttons!’

‘Claims his name is Sammy Coots.’ The policeman gave the man a shake. ‘Where did you get that coat?’ he demanded.

‘Swapped it, didn’t I?’

‘Who with?’

‘That’d be telling, that would!’

Dilys longed to lay heavy hands on the wretch. She saw at once that Stanley had set this up to make fools of them; to prove how easily he could manipulate them all. Just one slap, she thought furiously, on that sly, grinning face!

Behind them people were sniggering behind their hands and she felt the colour rush back into her face.

The policeman gave him another shake. ‘If you don’t tell me before I count five I’ll run you in for wasting police time!’

In a low voice, Dilys said, ‘It’s not him. You’ll have to let him go.’

‘That’s for me to decide!’ he snapped and Dilys realized that he, too, had been made to look foolish.

The policeman pulled him away from the wall then slammed him back against it.

Deciding the joke had gone far enough, the man cried, ‘Hang on! I’ve not done nothing wrong! It’s not a crime to swap me coat, is it?’

Dilys stammered, ‘I’m sorry. It’s not a crime but you have—’

The police glared at her. ‘Let me do the talking, if you don’t mind, Mrs Maynard. It is my job, after—’

The man interrupted. ‘OK. I’ll tell you. It was a tall chap. Staring sort of eyes. I don’t know his name, I swear it. He come up to me and said, “A tanner for you if you swap coats with me,” but I wasn’t ’aving any of that old malarkey! I said, “What? Only sixpence?” So I got him up to a bob and
then
we swapped coats.’ He sighed. ‘Mine was older and thinner, see, but it still ’ad a bit of red silk lining
and
all the buttons bar one.
And
a little furry bit of collar. Pretty, it was, that red lining.’ He peered down at his coat.

‘This is better, though. Thicker, see. All I need is a bit of string to tie it round the middle.’ He stuck his hands in the pockets and turned to and fro.

Like a woman showing off a new dress, thought Dilys, astonished by a sudden pang of compassion that swept through her.

Reluctantly the policeman took off the handcuffs and said ‘Get to the end of the queue. You’ve lost your place and it serves you right. My advice to you is – don’t mess with the police in future or you’ll live to regret it!’

Sammy Coots sprang to attention and gave him a mock salute which earned him a heavy cuff round the ear but undeterred, he regained his balance and sauntered off to rejoin the queue to the accompaniment of a small round of applause.

Sick at heart, Dilys watched him go but the policeman shook his head as a look of keen disappointment replaced his earlier excitement.

‘See what we have to put up with?’ he asked. ‘The scum of the earth!’

‘I feel that it was all my fault,’ Dilys offered with genuine regret. She felt guilty about the harsh treatment meted out to an innocent man. ‘I should have waited a little longer to be sure.

‘Not your fault, Mrs Maynard. You did your best. But a pity, nonetheless.’

‘Stanley must be laughing at us, knowing how upset we must be.’

‘Don’t worry. We’ll get Pennington eventually and then he’ll laugh on the other side of his face! Don’t give up hope. I’ll get back to the station and write up my report.’ He drew a long breath and let it out. ‘Stanley Pennington is a sight too smart for his own good. He might have wrong-footed us this time but we’ll get him. And I’ll be keeping an eye on the other one. The ginger nut. Sammy Coots.’ He nodded. ‘I’ll be breathing down his scrawny neck if he so much as sneezes on my beat!’

Dilys was deeply embarrassed by the mistake and when the ginger-haired man reached her she felt obliged to apologize. In a low voice she said, ‘I’m sorry about all that. Please take this –’ she slipped him a florin – ‘and buy yourself a nice belt to go round the coat.’

He looked at her as though she was quite mad and said nothing but he took the money and slipped it into his pocket. When he’d passed along, Marguerite whispered, ‘He’ll probably steal a belt and spend all the money on drink!’

‘I don’t care!’ Dilys felt her face redden. ‘I need to feel better about it, that’s all.’ And just because he’s homeless, she thought, it doesn’t follow that he’s a thief.

Later that evening when Dilys recounted the fiasco to Hettie over the telephone, she heard her sister-in-law laugh.

‘It wasn’t funny!’ Dilys snapped. ‘Just wait until it’s your turn to be harassed.’

‘I’m sorry, Dilys. It was the way you told it.’

‘Well, the police don’t find it funny, I can assure you of that.’

She wondered for a few moments, if she really did want Hettie to come and stay with her but, on reflection, thought she would go ahead with their plan. She said, ‘Miss Gray starts tomorrow. She’ll do the heavy work as usual but stay every night for a week, so come along any time after lunch and you can settle in.’ Another thought struck her. ‘I hope Albert didn’t object to the idea.’

‘He doesn’t know yet,’ Hettie told her. ‘I know he’ll raise all sorts of objections but it won’t make me change my mind. This is his mess – his and Monica’s – and I don’t intend to be dragged into it.’

‘Poor Monica,’ Dilys said thoughtfully. ‘You never met her and you shouldn’t judge her too harshly. It’s not really her fault that Stanley was sent away. It’s a long time ago now, but I do recall that Albert had had enough of him and his wild ways and—’

‘When you say “wild ways” . . .’

‘He was wild in the sense of unpredictable and quarrelsome. Getting into mischief and being destructive. He had a terrible temper. John and I gave up visiting them.’ She hesitated. ‘This will sound terrible, Hettie, but one day they found their cat dead and Albert immediately blamed Stanley.’

‘And was it him?’

‘We never knew, for certain. Cats don’t live forever. Monica confided one day that Stanley didn’t seem able to accept that he had done anything wrong. Not ever. She felt that “the difference between right and wrong eluded him”. Yet some days he was very pleasant . . . but it never lasted. She wanted him to see a psychiatrist but Albert wouldn’t hear of it. He was ashamed to think there might be anything wrong with the boy. Men are like that about their sons. If they are not perfect and reflect well on the parents . . .’ She broke off, troubled by the unwelcome memories.

‘So he chose to get rid of him?’

‘That sounds very harsh but I dare say you’re right. When Monica protested about the idea to send him to Ceylon, Albert told her it was either that or he would have him committed. Monica couldn’t bear the idea of him being locked up and we had a family conference to decide what to do . . . and it seemed kinder to give him another chance in a new country. We all just hoped for the best.’