A Lesser Evil (35 page)

I meant what I said about you and Dan coming for a weekend soon, but on reflection it would probably be for the best if you came alone the first time. There is still so much to be talked over, and we need to get that out of the way before we can really welcome Dan.I’m sure you’ll understand what I mean.

Write soon,

All our love, Mum and Dad.

‘Well?’ Dan said behind her. ‘Was I right or wrong?’Fifi felt sickened that her mother had let her down, but as she turned and saw Dan’s smug ‘I told you so’ expression, she felt angry with him too.

‘Wrong,’ she lied. ‘She only says how nice it was to see me and our home the other day.’

‘So can I see it?’

‘I’ve just told you what she said.’

‘You’ve only told me part of it,’ he said, and he lunged forward and snatched the letter out of her hand before she even saw him move.

‘Give it back,’ she shrieked. ‘You’ve got no right to read my letters.’

He held it above his head, out of her reach, and read it.

‘I rest my case,’ he said as he handed it back to her. ‘Just as I said, she wants you there all on your own. Once you’ve told her all my faults, it won’t take her long to convince you that you’d be better off without me.’

Earlier this morning, before she went to the police station, Fifi had felt Dan was justified in walking out the night before, and she had been determined to tell him so when he got home today. She really wanted things to get back to the way they used to be, making each other laugh, being relaxed and happy together. When they first got married they had agreed that it didn’t matter what anyone else thought or said about either of them. He said that he could live with her parents’ attitude towards him, because he knew they had something together that was very rare and precious. She had promised him that she would never let her family come between them, and she believed she had kept her promise.

So she felt betrayed now, because after all they’d been through, he had decided to believe she was so stupid that she couldn’t see how manipulative her mother was, and so weak that if she did go home alone, she would just bow under the pressure.

He had made sarcastic comments about her mother in the past, but Fifi had always laughed them off, understanding it was because he felt a little insecure, and she’d given him reassurance that he was the only important person in her life.

But now she felt angry that he couldn’t see she had merely been protecting his feelings with this letter. She was the one who had been virtually cast out because of him. Dan had lost nothing at all. So how dare he get on his high horse about a situation which she had been trying desperately to improve?

‘Perhaps I would be better off without you,’ she snarled angrily at him in the heat of the moment, not stopping to think what she was saying. ‘My life took a downturn the moment I married you.’

The goading, smug look he’d had seconds before vanished. She saw deep hurt replace it, and if she could have clawed back those words, she would have done.

‘I didn’t mean that,’ she said quickly. ‘I’m sorry.’

He raised one eyebrow and just stared at her, not saying a word. Then he turned on his heel and went into the bedroom.

She heard the sound of the wardrobe door opening, but thought he was just getting some clean clothes out to get changed. She decided it was better to leave it for now, and she began to lay the table.

She looked round as he came out of the bedroom, and to her consternation he was just standing on the landing looking at her, his duffel bag in his hand.

He looked exactly as he had when they first met. A bit grubby, hair in need of a wash, stubble on his chin, even the duffel bag was the same one. But he’d smiled all the time that evening, and now his expression was cold and unreadable.

‘I’ll be off now. I’ve left money on the chest of drawers for you. When you go back to Bristol drop a line to the site, and I’ll come and get the rest of my stuff.’

‘You’re leaving me?’ she asked incredulously.

‘It’s better for me to go now than pull you down even further.’

The hurt in his voice matched that in his eyes.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Dan,’ she pleaded with him. ‘You know perfectly well I didn’t mean it.’

‘You did, and I can’t really blame you either. It’s true, I have pulled you down.’ He was off down the stairs too fast for Fifi even to attempt to stop him.

‘Come back, Dan,’ she yelled, but the front door slammed and he was gone.

The shock was so great that she just stood on the landing like a statue. She couldn’t believe it. She half expected him to come back in after a few moments and say it was a joke.

He surely couldn’t leave her over something as petty as a letter. Could he?

As the minutes ticked by and he didn’t reappear, she realized he was deadly serious. It wasn’t just that cruel and thoughtless remark, she knew that. It had been building throughout the strain of the past weeks. Her mother’s visit, the letter, the way she treated him last night had all joined together in his head, and her angry words had just topped it off.

She collapsed on to the bed, crying. She could be strong as long as he was by her side, loving her, but without him she would fall apart.

Chapter Fourteen

On Monday morning Fifi dragged herself reluctantly out of bed. She had spent the whole weekend alternately crying or looking out of the window in the hope that she’d suddenly see Dan coming down the street, and that everything would be all right again.

But by Sunday night she realized he wasn’t going to come back, and all there was left was the post mortem, apportioning blame for all the incidents that led up to him walking out. She felt she was responsible for almost all of them.

The thought of going back to work today filled her with dread. The other girls were bound to question her about the miscarriage, and maybe about Angela’s death if they’d read about Fifi’s role in the papers. She couldn’t talk to them about all that without revealing Dan had left her. If only she hadn’t been so smug in the past about her happy marriage! It was always ‘
Dan does this
, or
Dan does that
,’ as if he was Mr Perfect Husband.

She’d never admitted that her parents disapproved of him, or that their home was just two rooms in a seedy backstreet either, so how would she be able to explain why it had all gone wrong?

If she knew where Dan had gone, she’d have run to him yesterday and pleaded with him to come home. But she didn’t know and had no idea where to look. He talked about the men he worked with often, but it was all about what they were like, their funny habits or interests, jokes they’d told him. He’d never said, ‘
Owen lives in So and So
’, or ‘
Jack comes up on the train from Catford
.’ Even if he had, what use would that be? London was a huge place, and she didn’t even know his workmates’ surnames.

It was tempting to skip work today and go down to the building site in Stockwell. But it wouldn’t look good if she didn’t turn up at work after having so much time off, and she’d need the job even more if Dan never came back. Besides, Dan had always insisted she wasn’t to go to the site, he said it was no place for women. She guessed he would be even crosser with her if she showed him up in front of his friends and his boss.

All she could do was post the letter she’d written to him last night, and hope that by the time he got it tomorrow morning, he’d be missing her so much that he’d come straight back.

‘Good to see you back, Mrs Reynolds,’ Mr Unwin said as he came into the office and saw her at her desk. ‘I hope you are fully recovered.’

Fifi thought Mr Unwin was a rarity in the legal world, genuinely kind and considerate to his staff, so very different to some of the brusque and heartless solicitors in the Bristol office. He was an ugly man, tall and thin, with a beak-like nose and very big prominent teeth, yet surprisingly he had a very beautiful blonde wife who appeared to adore him.

‘Yes thank you, sir,’ she replied, wondering how many more people would ask her that today, and how long she could keep up pretending she was fine.

Mr Unwin asked Beryl, the office junior, to bring him some coffee and then turned to Fifi again.

‘Would you like to come in now for some dictation, Mrs Reynolds? I won’t work you too hard today,’ he said with a smile. ‘I’ve got two letters I must get out, but once you’ve done those you can do some copy-typing or filing for the rest of the day.’

By lunchtime Fifi’s arm and fingers were aching, but at least that gave her a good excuse for being less than vibrant. Some of the girls asked her to join them for lunch, clearly wanting to hear about everything, but she made the excuse she had some shopping to do, and went down to her favourite place by the Thames so she could think things through.

It was a warm but dull day, and the river looked grey and sluggish, just the way she felt inside. She remembered how joyful she’d been the first time she came to this spot. She’d been so excited to be by the famous river, to see all those landmarks like the Houses of Parliament and the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral. She had really believed then that she and Dan would be together for ever, whatever life threw at them.

But without him, London had no romance, no excitement, it was just a huge, sprawling city that some people claimed was the loneliest place in the world.

She already felt unbearably lonely. Dan had once said teasingly that she didn’t have any real friends in London, only acquaintances, and she’d find out the difference when she was in trouble. She’d been indignant at the time, running through about a dozen people she’d met since they’d come to London whom she classed as friends, and swore she knew they’d lend her money, give her a bed for the night or anything else she needed.

Yet now, when all she needed was a shoulder to cry on, someone who would listen and care, she couldn’t think of anyone who would fit that bill. Yvette, Miss Diamond, Stan, Frank, they’d all kind of distanced themselves from her recently. So she guessed Dan was right, they weren’t real friends. Patty was the only person she knew she could rely on – she’d catch the next train up to London if Fifi called her. But she wasn’t going to call her. If she did, her mother would know she’d won.

In her letter to Dan she’d explained that if he hadn’t taken that letter to work with him, she would have read it, destroyed it and then written back to her mother to say they either came together for a visit or not at all. She had said that he did come first, she’d got along without her family for this long, and she could manage without them for ever if necessary. But she could not manage without him.

Fifi was bone-weary as she walked home from the tube station that evening. A full day back at work, after doing nothing for so long, had proved exhausting.

She stopped at the corner shop to get some bread. Mrs Witherspoon, the shopkeeper, was deep in conversation with Eva Price, the red-headed divorcee, but both women turned as Fifi walked in.

‘Carry on if you were talking about me,’ Fifi said sarcastically, thinking they’d heard Dan had left her.

‘We weren’t talking about you, dear,’ Mrs Witherspoon said. ‘We were just wondering what more could happen in this street.’

It was the tone of the shopkeeper’s voice that jerked Fifi out of her own problems. Normally it was low, almost conspiratorial, possibly because Mrs Witherspoon spent a large portion of her day receiving and passing on gossip, but now it was shrill and frightened.

‘We can’t blame Alfie for this one, not when he’s under lock and key,’ said Eva, looking even more troubled than Mrs Witherspoon.

‘What’s happened?’ Fifi asked.

‘You haven’t heard?’ Mrs Witherspoon asked. ‘The police have been up and down the street all day!’

‘I went back to work today,’ Fifi said. ‘I was just going home. It’s not something to do with Dan, is it?’

‘No, love. It’s John Bolton. He’s dead. They found his body in the river early this morning,’ Eva said with a heavy sigh. ‘Not an accident either. They’ve started a murder enquiry.’

Dan walking out had driven all the thoughts about the man in the Jaguar and John Bolton out of Fifi’s mind. But this shocking piece of news brought them right back. ‘No!’ she exclaimed, suddenly feeling quite faint.

‘Vera came in here for her fags this morning,’ Mrs Witherspoon said, leaning her hefty bosom on the counter. ‘She was going on about him staying out all night, said when he came home she’d be ready with the rolling pin. It were only a couple of hours later the police came. Soon as I saw the car I guessed something had happened to John. Poor Vera, there’s some around here that’s got no sympathy for her cos John was a villain, but to me she’s just a woman who’s lost her old man. I feel real sorry for her.’

‘How awful for her,’ Fifi said weakly. She could well imagine how she would feel if the police came to tell her Dan was dead. ‘Have they got any idea who did it?’

‘Don’t think so,’ Eva replied. ‘They’ve been asking lots of questions, but John weren’t the kind to talk about his business.’

‘Some folk are saying his “business” was protection rackets,’ Mrs Witherspoon said, her eyes glinting. ‘If it were, then he deserves what he got. But it’s poor Vera I’m worried about, she’ll be beside herself.’

It was too much for Fifi. Suddenly she couldn’t stay in the shop a moment longer. She put the money for the bread down on the counter, excused herself and rushed off.

As she opened the front door, Frank saw her from his kitchen.

‘How did you get on at work?’ he called out.

‘Fine, thank you,’ she said, wanting to get upstairs immediately because she felt so panicky.

‘Have you heard about John Bolton?’ he asked, and came down the passage towards her.

Fifi’s heart sank. She couldn’t be rude and rush away. ‘Yes, just. Mrs Witherspoon told me. It’s awful, isn’t it? As if there hasn’t been enough misery in this street already.’