Tiger Ragtime (41 page)

Aled went in. The manager had already taken a decanter of malt whisky out of his cabinet and cut two plump Havana cigars.

Aled took the whisky and the cigar, produced the records Harry had given him and explained in as few words as possible what he wanted.

The manager topped up their glasses. ‘I’d help you if I could, Aled, you know that. You’re a damned good customer. Accounts the size of yours don’t walk through the doors that often these days. Butetown might be the first place in the world that a million pound cheque was written but it’s been a long time since we’ve seen any transactions that size on the Bay. But, to get back to this old account of your mother’s, we only keep records of transactions that go back five years. Everything older is sent to Head Office. You could try writing to them to see if they can help you. But the boys in Head Office are sticklers for doing everything by the book. They’ll want to see a statement of your mother’s old account.’

‘If she ever received any, they’ve long since disappeared. I told you, she died when I was twelve and we were living in rented rooms. Everything she owned, which wasn’t much, was either thrown out or sold.’

‘Perhaps you have her birth certificate?’ When Aled shook his head he said, ‘marriage certificate?’

‘She wasn’t ever married to my knowledge,’ Aled divulged curtly.

‘Death certificate?’

‘I don’t even have that. Have you always worked in this bank?’

‘The Capital and Counties Bank, yes. My grandfather did, and my father is a director. When my father was younger he managed the main Cardiff branch. I followed him into the business straight from public school.’

‘Were you working in this bank sixteen years ago?’

‘The bank yes, this branch no.’

‘Could you give me the name of someone who was?’ The manager put his fingertips together and stared thoughtfully into space for a few seconds. ‘The name that springs to mind is Geoff Arnold, the estate agent. He’s rumoured to be worth hundreds of thousands. His father was an ordinary seaman; his mother took casual work unloading ships when the family hit hard times. But to look at him now, you’d never think that he started off as a humble clerk behind the counter here, would you?’

Chapter Twenty-one

‘Do you have any messages for Mary or Martha or the boys?’ Harry stood in Helga Brown’s backyard watching David brush his shoes.

‘Tell them that I’m thinking of them and that I’m fine –’

‘Are you?’ Harry interrupted.

‘How many times do I have to tell you and everyone else that I won’t work as a bookie’s runner ever again?’ David questioned testily.

‘You want to make a career out of running a roulette wheel in a gambling club instead?’ Harry couldn’t resist the gibe.

‘Not a career but it will do for the time being.’ David straightened up and returned the shoe brushes and polish to the old biscuit tin Helga kept them in. He walked over to the cold tap set in the outside wall, turned it on, took a sliver of green household soap from a dish on the window sill, and washed his hands.

‘What happens after “the time being”?’ Harry expected David to snarl ‘I don’t know’, as he had done so many times before, but he surprised him.

‘Eventually, when I’ve earned and saved enough money, I’d like to buy a business down here like Edyth – and not because she lives on the Bay. I know she’s in love with Micah Holsten.’

‘You don’t mind?’ Harry asked cautiously.

David shrugged his shoulders. ‘I did when I first found out about them. But Micah’s a good man and I’m used to the idea of them being together now. I’m lucky to have both of them for friends,’ he added.

‘You are.’ Relieved, Harry felt that David had taken the first step towards maturity.

‘I like the Bay. I like the people here. I like the fact that everyone is judged by what they do, not who their family are or the amount of money they have in their pocket.’

‘At the risk of making you angry again, you took a big risk to make above average wages when you started working for Aiden Collins,’ Harry ventured.

‘I was stupid to do it. I know that now. I also know that it will take years to save enough money to buy a decent business, but it will give me something to work towards. In the meantime, I can earn a lot more working for Aled James than I can by joining the queue at Penniless Point.’

‘What kind of business are you thinking of?’ Harry enquired.

‘A shop perhaps. Or a pub.’ David smiled. ‘A pub would be great – there’d always be people calling in and talking and games –’

‘Like roulette, so you could fleece your customers. You’ve learned the lessons Aled James has taught you well.’

‘Not roulette,’ David said impatiently, ‘cards –’

‘Which are illegal,’ Harry reminded him.

‘Only if there’s money on the table.’

‘Which there would be, on the Bay.’

‘Not in my pub,’ David countered. ‘And there’d be darts and dominoes for the old men.’

‘You’ve really been thinking about this, haven’t you?’ Harry was amazed.

‘The pubs here are fantastic, Harry. Not a bit like the ones in the Swansea Valley,’ he insisted enthusiastically. ‘There are people in them from all over the world. You should hear some of the stories the sailors tell. And the singing – everyone on the Bay seems to be musical.’

‘And you think you’d be happy running a pub like that?’

David saw that Harry was serious. ‘I don’t know,’ he answered cautiously. ‘But what I do know is that I’m happier here, surrounded by people, than I was at the farm with only you, Mary, and the family for company. I’m sorry, Harry, but I’m not coming back.’

‘You’ve nothing to be sorry for. You’re a young man, it’s only natural you want to see something of life. And the farm is isolated and quiet.’

David had a rare flash of insight. ‘You’re not that happy living there either.’

‘I don’t live there all the time. I travel around a lot and occasionally manage to get Mary away. But there’s one big difference between you and me. The woman I love is on the farm and I would do anything to stay close to her and make her happy.’

David went into the washhouse and lifted down his suit jacket from the peg on the back of the door. ‘If I don’t leave for the club now, I’ll be late.’

‘I’ll give you a lift to Bute Street.’ Harry followed him into the house.

‘You calling in on Edyth again?’

‘No, I’m on my way to Pontypridd to spend the night with my parents. I’ll go back to the farm tomorrow.’

‘You won’t tell Mary about my being in court, will you, Harry?’

David looked so apologetic and frightened, Harry almost hugged him, but he knew that his brother-in-law would balk at any display of emotion. ‘I won’t tell her and I’ll be careful not to take any newspapers home that carry the story. But my parents will probably find out what you’ve done. Ellis isn’t a very common name in this part of Wales.’

‘If they do, tell them I’m sorry and I won’t ever do anything to bring disgrace on the family again.’

‘I will.’

‘I’m sorry for messing up, Harry.’

‘We’re all entitled to make a few mistakes.’

‘I think I’ve made enough to last me the rest of my life. And, I promise you, Harry, I may still be working for Aled James, but no amount of money will ever tempt me to break the law again.’

‘That’s good to hear.’ Harry knew that David meant every word he’d said, but the assertion wouldn’t stop him from telephoning Micah Holsten and Edyth every few days, just to make sure that David was keeping out of trouble.

‘If you’ve called in to set your guard dog on Gertie again, you’ll have to wait, she’s with a client,’ Anna snapped when Aled walked into her kitchen, where she was sitting talking to her other girls.

‘It’s you I’ve come to see. Can we go into your parlour?’

Just when Aled expected Anna to refuse, she left her chair. She ushered him into her cheerless front parlour and looked around before sitting on the sofa. ‘I don’t know why I keep this room as a parlour. The only times it’s been used in the past few years is when we’ve talked, and we could go upstairs to my room. I should turn it into another bedroom and give it to one of the young girls working the streets. Do her and myself a bit of good.’

‘You’d need thicker curtains,’ Aled observed.

‘I think I could run to those. But you haven’t come here to talk about curtains. What do you want, Aled?’ she asked bluntly.

‘I found out something today about my mother.’

‘If it’s bad, I don’t want to hear it,’ she retorted loyally. ‘Like me and every girl on the game, your mother did what she had to in order to survive – and to bring you up as best she could,’ she reminded him acidly.

‘It’s nothing she did, but it might be something that was done to her. Apparently my father paid her –’

‘Two pounds a week,’ Anna broke in.

‘You knew about that?’ he said in amazement.

‘She moved down here on the strength of it. One of her old friends from Tonypandy lived in rooms in Loudoun Square. The woman – she’s long moved on – told your mother all sorts of stories about life on the Bay. Your mother heard about the park in the middle of the square and Butetown being close to the sea and thought it would be an ideal place to find a bit of life for herself and bring you up. So she came down here and rented rooms in the same house as her friend.’

‘In Loudoun Square.’ Aled had a sudden image of his mother, taking him to a window.
There’s a bloody nice little park there, Aled, for you to play in. If the other kids push you around, you push them right back and clock them one, just like you did the kids in Bush Houses …

‘Two rooms, big ones with high ceilings.’

‘You remember? You were only a nipper and you weren’t there long.’

‘No, we weren’t.’

‘Then the bastard – your father, that is – stopped paying the money. Your mother went to the bank one Friday and the clerk said it hadn’t been paid into her account so she couldn’t take it out. He knew she couldn’t read or write so he said he’d try and find out what was wrong for her. Shortly after that she fell ill. I went to the bank a couple of times for her but there never was any more money. That’s when I told her to move in here with me. Course, I was renting a room here at the time. I didn’t own it.’

‘This clerk, do you remember his name?’

‘The one who offered to look into it for her was Geoff Arnold. He’s done all right for himself, made a bloody fortune …’ she whirled around. ‘He didn’t …?’

‘I found out today that two pounds a week was paid into my mother’s bank account every week until my sixteenth birthday.’

‘One thing’s for certain: she didn’t see much of it after the first few weeks she lived here.’

‘Have you got her bank book?’

‘Don’t you remember? After she died we went through her things. We burned most of the papers. You thought you’d never need them again.’

‘Geoff Arnold? How wealthy is he?’

‘He and his wife live in a big house out Rhiwbina way. They moved from Butetown ten years ago or more. Said the Bay wasn’t fashionable enough for them any more. He has an office in Bute Street, but you’d know that. And he owns at least half a dozen of the big houses in Loudoun Square, all split into rooms. The rents on those alone must come to a pretty penny. Do you really think he took your mother’s money?’

‘If Arnold told her that her money hadn’t arrived she wouldn’t have thought to go to anyone else in the bank and question what he’d said.’

‘Neither did I, and I wasn’t ill like your mother. I could kick myself. I should have demanded to see your mother’s bank statement.’

‘You didn’t have any reason to be suspicious,’ he consoled her. ‘And if it wasn’t for you taking us in, Mam and I would have ended up on the street.’

Anna took a packet of cigarettes from her pocket and lit one. It said something for the state of her mind that she didn’t offer one to Aled. ‘The bastard!’

‘You talking about Geoff Arnold or someone else?’

‘Geoff Arnold. He was one of your mother’s regulars. He used to pay her five bob a week every Friday. Not that she didn’t earn it ten times over, the things he made her do. But she was grateful because it covered half the cost of her room here.’

‘I wish I had proof that he pocketed our money.’

‘Do you want me to ask around the Bay?’

‘No.’ Aled left his chair. ‘I need to find out more before I challenge Geoff Arnold. And don’t tell me to be careful …’

‘You’ve fallen foul of Charlie Moore and it has cost you and your boys more than money. Rumour has it the two that were picked up the same time as David Ellis are going down.’

‘The solicitor warned me that they’ll probably get six months apiece as well as the fine,’ he admitted.

‘You’re making powerful enemies, Aled. Watch your back.’

‘I’ve a few well-paid boys to do that for me. And you. You’re a good friend, Anna.’

‘I could have been a better one to your mother. Two quid a week would have made a lot of difference to her back then.’

‘If we’d had it I would never have gone to America, and if I hadn’t, I would never have come back here with my pockets well-lined. I probably would have stayed here and found work as a docker or a bartender –’

‘You? Never.’ She shook her head. ‘You only have to look at you to see that you’re destined for great things, Aled James.’

The door banged and Anna went into the hall. Gertie was tucking her hair under a beret.

‘I’m going out. I won’t be long, just reminding a man about a debt I’m owed.’ She looked at Aled. ‘Before you say another word, it’s money I need to move on.’

‘I thought Aiden gave you enough to do that.’

‘He gave me enough to move, not to set myself up when I get there. See you, Anna. Any regulars of mine come in, keep them until I get back and don’t let Colleen grab them, not until I’m packed and out of here. Don’t worry, Mr James, I’ll be out of Butetown by this time tomorrow.’

Aled tipped his hat to her and left the house. He followed Gertie to Bute Street. He’d been a pickpocket, and a good one in his time. It was easy to slip a couple of fivers into Gertie’s pocket before turning into his club.

‘You shut down your roulette wheel for the night?’ Aled asked David when he walked into his office at midnight.

‘Ten minutes ago, Mr James.’

Aled looked to Aiden who was sitting next to Freddie. ‘You and David go round the card tables, Aiden, take everything except the floats, put it together with the money already in the safe, take it down to the bank and lock it in the night safe.’

‘Isn’t it too early, boss?’ Aiden asked. ‘We usually go after the club is closed.’

‘I’ve been looking at the tables. We’ve had a good night. I’d be happier if some of the money was off the premises now. Freddie, you drive them.’

‘Boss, it’s only a couple of hundred yards –’ Aiden began.

‘And I’d be happier if you had Freddie with you,’ Aled interrupted sharply. ‘Now start collecting that money.’

‘Yes, boss. David.’ Aidan led the way out of the door.

They passed Judy, who was wearing the crimson silk dress Aled had insisted on buying.

‘Only a couple more songs to go.’ Aled smiled as he saw her. ‘Do you fancy supper in my suite in the Windsor after the club closes?’

‘Not tonight, Aled.’

‘Anything the matter?’

‘I’m tired, and I have to face Edyth when I go home.’

‘She waits up for you?’

‘No she doesn’t, but she’s a light sleeper and she knows about us.’

‘How?’ he questioned warily.

‘Because I told her. I’m not very good at keeping secrets,’ she explained.

‘And what exactly did you tell her?’

‘That we’re carrying on.’

‘And what did she say?’

‘What I expected her to say.’ Judy sat on the edge of his desk. ‘She wasn’t very happy.’

‘Judy, please don’t spoil what we have by starting a fight.’

‘I’m not, I’m just telling you that Edyth knows.’

‘If you can’t make supper tonight, how about lunch tomorrow, in my suite?’

‘I’ll be more alive then. Shall I come round about twelve o’clock?’

‘Make it one; I have a few things to do in the morning.’

He opened his desk drawer.

‘Even better, I can have a longer lie-in.’ She jumped down off his desk. ‘I’d better go and ask Mandy to check my make-up before I go on.’

Judy left the room and Aled lifted an envelope from his drawer. He opened it and read the ‘letter’ it contained for the tenth time since it had been handed to him as he had left the Windsor. The receptionist had told him that it had been hand delivered by one of the unemployed seamen who hung around the streets, but the man had only been able to give him a vague description that could have fitted any one of a hundred men. And given the message, there was little point in trying to track down the seaman. He knew who had sent it, although there was no handwriting, just letters cut from newspaper headlines and pasted on to a sheet of plain paper.