A Lesser Evil (53 page)

Clara agreed, but her eyes were brimming with tears as she left. Dan guessed she felt just as he did, afraid to let Fifi out of her sight.

Detective Inspector Roper came in to see Fifi after her parents had left. He didn’t ask any questions, just said how glad he was that she was safe, and wished her a speedy recovery. He went on to say he’d be back in the morning to talk to her. But he asked Dan to come outside with him for a few minutes.

In the ward sister’s office, the first thing Roper asked was why Dan hadn’t come to him about Trueman.

Dan saw no point in beating about the bush. ‘I was afraid someone down the nick was leaking information,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t take that risk.’

Roper frowned but didn’t comment. ‘So who told you about Trueman?’ he asked.

‘I heard a bloke in the pub talking about him, he said John Bolton had worked for him,’ Dan lied. ‘I asked around, discovered what he looked like, and that he had a red Jag. You could’ve found that out,’ he added pointedly. ‘And how come you never found his fingerprints in number eleven?’

‘Surprisingly the man has no criminal record,’ Roper said with some regret. ‘He’s been known to the Met for nigh on forty years, but they’ve never been able to pin anything on him, not even enough to get his prints. He didn’t come into the frame for this because he doesn’t normally extend his interests south of the river.’

‘But Bolton managed one of his clubs!’

‘Bolton had dealings with dozens of clubs.’Roper shrugged. ‘We were still checking them all out. What you’ve got to remember is that a man like Trueman controls people through fear. No one would risk passing us any information. But enough of that for now. How much has your wife been able to tell you about her abduction?’

‘Nothing yet,’ Dan said. ‘Only that Yvette hanged herself. That must have been such a terrible shock that I’m not sure she’ll ever get beyond that. So it’s up to you now to find out why a powerful man like Trueman consorted with a piece of shit like Alfie. That’s the bit that doesn’t make any sense to me.’

Roper said he would be back in the morning to see Dan again, and hopefully Fifi would be up to talking by then too.

‘Taking Trueman on was very courageous,’ he said, looking up at Dan with an expression of awe and respect. ‘Everyone in the force has nothing but profound admiration for you rescuing your wife. Please tell her from us that we will round up all those who were involved, and the investigation into Angela’s death will be finalized and the guilty punished.’

After Roper had left, Dan asked the ward sister if it would be possible for him to stay with Fifi all night. He explained that he couldn’t bear to leave her, and that he was afraid she might have nightmares. Sister was very sympathetic and said there was no need for him to sleep in the chair, she would get a camp bed sent up for him.

Fifi was asleep by the time Dan got back to her room, so he took the opportunity to nip out and get himself some fish and chips. When he returned Fifi was still sleeping so he lay down on the camp bed.

It was cosy in the small room with the blinds pulled down and the only light, above the bed, shining down on some scrawny flowers he’d bought from a barrow at the hospital gates.

Outside in the corridor it was quiet now visitors had left, only the occasional trundling sound of a drugs or drinks trolley, and nurses hurrying past. Dan knew he would have to go back to the flat tomorrow or the day after to get Fifi some clean clothes, and he supposed he ought to go and phone the Rifleman and ask them to give the news that Fifi was safe to Frank, Miss Diamond and Stan. But although he wanted to pass on the good news and relieve everyone of worry, he knew they’d all be upset about Yvette. She might have been rather odd, but she’d lived in Dale Street for a long time and people had become fond of her.

It was strange that he hadn’t really reacted to her death. He was horrified of course to see her hanging there, that was bloody awful. But once he was out of the barn with Fifi he kind of switched off about her.

He was curious now though. When did she do it? Did Fifi try to stop her?

He really hoped that by tomorrow Fifi would have recovered enough to want to talk and ask questions, then he’d really believe she was on the mend. But he didn’t know how he would explain how he found out about Jack Trueman without revealing Nora Diamond’s part in it. Dan was curious himself now about what the man had done to her. But he didn’t suppose she’d ever tell him. He wasn’t sure he was prepared to tell Fifi about the gun either, he thought she’d be horrified to know he’d been walking about with it in his pocket.

So many questions that needed answering! And if he had a load, how many more would the police have tomorrow? He wished he could just scoop Fifi up now and whisk her off somewhere peaceful and beautiful.

He was not going to take her back to Dale Street, ever. Maybe it would be best to stay permanently in Bristol, so she never had reminders of all this again. It would be their first wedding anniversary on the 20th. What a terrible year it had been too! Surely it was time for something good to happen?

Fifi cried out suddenly, and Dan was off the camp bed and over to her in two seconds.

‘It’s okay, I’m here,’ he said soothingly, gathering her into his arms.

For a second she looked as if she didn’t know where she was, there was terror in her eyes. ‘It was the rats,’ she whispered. ‘They were as big as cats and they were coming for me.’

‘The only rat in here is me,’ he said. ‘And I’m the cuddly kind.’

She half smiled. ‘It was so real,’ she sighed. ‘That’s what I was most afraid of once I found Yvette dead. We used to hear them scuttling around at night, but we didn’t actually see any.’

‘So when did she do it?’ Dan asked gently, moving round so that his back was supported on the bed rail while he held Fifi in his arms. ‘Did you see it?’

Fifi shook her head and explained what happened. ‘I think she went a bit mad at the end. She was talking in French, she said she thought she was with her mother. But that wasn’t surprising after all she’d been through.’

Haltingly she began to tell him what Yvette had been through in Paris as a young girl. Dan was shocked, not just at the cruelty of it, but because he’d always had the idea Yvette was sort of born a spinster. He certainly couldn’t imagine her in a bordello.

‘I suppose she just didn’t have anything to hang on for,’ he said. ‘I mean, no one of her own looking for her.’

‘It wasn’t that,’ Fifi said in a small voice. She turned to him and buried her face in his chest, clutching his arms tightly. ‘Oh Dan, when she told me about it, it didn’t seem real. Nothing did while we were in the barn. But now!’

She began to sob, a harsh sound which came from deep within her. Dan held her close, whispering endearments, reassuring her she was safe. He had expected that she’d break down once she thought over what she’d been through.

‘What didn’t seem real?’ he asked after a little while. He thought it best to try to get her to talk. ‘Do you mean Yvette’s body hanging there?’

‘No, that was terribly real,’ she sobbed out. ‘It was what she said.’ Once again she buried her face against him.

Dan prised her from him, lifting her face and drying her tears with the edge of the sheet. ‘So maybe it wasn’t real then. Tell me and see what I think.’

‘You won’t believe it,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t think anyone will.’

‘Try me?’ he whispered.

‘She killed Angela.’

Dan almost wanted to laugh, and he might have done if he hadn’t thought Fifi was losing her grip on reality. ‘She couldn’t have, sweetheart. Maybe she said she did, but she was obviously getting in a state. Maybe she meant it was her fault it happened because she hadn’t reported the Muckles when she knew they treated their kids badly.’

‘No, Dan, she really did do it,’ she cried out.

As she began to tell him the story of that Friday night, the men arriving for the card game, Dan realized she was repeating what she’d been told by Yvette. At first he was just humouring her, listening but not taking it that seriously, but by the time she got to the part about Yvette crouching in her garden watching Molly offering Angela for sale, he knew this was what really happened. Suddenly it was almost as if he were there in that garden too.

‘She heard the man upstairs with Angela,’ Fifi sobbed. ‘She said his name was Jack Trueman, and that’s the name I heard you say to the policeman today. Is he the man you hit?’

‘Yes.’ Dan licked his lips nervously, feeling sick to his stomach that the man could hurt a child that way. ‘Go on, what happened next?’

She continued with what took place the following day, right up to where Yvette put the pillow over Angela’s face. ‘She did do it, Dan, I know she did,’ she sobbed. ‘She even told me about getting the clean sheet to cover her.’

Dan was completely stunned. Had he known earlier today that it was Trueman who’d raped Angela, he wouldn’t have stopped at just beating him up. He felt absolute disgust for the man and all the others who’d been there that night, and that made Yvette’s part look almost kindly. But of course it wasn’t. Yvette should have got help for the child the minute she knew what was going to happen. It wasn’t her place to play God and decide the child would be happier dead.

‘She must have been mad,’ he exclaimed, so bewildered by what he’d heard, that seemed the only explanation.

‘She called killing Angela the lesser evil,’ Fifi said sorrowfully, clinging to Dan’s chest. ‘And I think she hanged herself because that was the lesser evil too.’

‘Well, it saved her from a public trial,’ Dan said grimly.

‘No,’ Fifi exclaimed, lifting her head to look at him. ‘I know that wasn’t her reason for it. She was a very moral person, I think she felt she must be punished. But starving to death with me would mean no one would ever know what she’d done. Even if we were rescued, it’s doubtful she would have been hanged, because of the circumstances. By killing herself, she took what she saw as the appropriate punishment.’

‘Shit!’ was all Dan could say.

They were silent for some time, Fifi lying in Dan’s arms while he stared into space. He couldn’t really think about the bigger implications of what Yvette had done, only about how this nightmare week would affect Fifi.

Suddenly she sat up, turning to look at him again. ‘The question is, do I tell the police about it?’ she asked.

‘Well yes, of course,’ Dan said.

‘But if I tell them they’ll have to let Molly and Alfie out, won’t they?’

Dan looked at her in consternation. ‘Why?’

‘Well, they can’t hold them for murder, can they?’

Dan saw what she meant. ‘But selling your seven-year-old daughter must be a pretty serious charge.’

‘What proof of that is there?’ Fifi asked. ‘Yvette’s dead. Jack Trueman isn’t likely to admit he bought and raped Angela. You can bet that anyone else there that night will deny it too. So what would there be left to charge Alfie and Molly with? They didn’t kill John Bolton, nor did they abduct Yvette and me.’

Dan was impressed that she could think things through so well after such an ordeal, and he could see her point. Alfie and Molly were two people anyone sane would want locked away for ever. ‘But if no one else admits to raping Angela, Alfie will get charged with it.’

‘And what will he get for that?’ Fifi asked derisively. ‘Five years maybe? That’s if they can even find enough proof to convince a jury he did it. Molly will be right off the hook, won’t she? She’ll cry and say how much she loves her children and that she didn’t know what was going on. Before you could say Jack Robinson she’ll be back in that house with her children!’

Dan thought Alfie would get a longer sentence than five years, and he didn’t think Molly would manage to wriggle out of any responsibility that easily either, or get her children back. But he could see Fifi’s point: there wasn’t a lot of hard evidence against the Muckles, not since Trueman abducted Fifi and Yvette. If Fifi chose not to reveal what she knew, there would be a kind of poetic justice in them being hanged or banged up for life for the one thing they didn’t actually do, when they’d got away with so much in the past.

‘Okay. But if you keep quiet, where does that leave Trueman? I don’t only want to see him go down for John Bolton’s murder and your abduction. I want to see him pilloried for raping Angela.’

Fifi nodded. ‘Yes, but even if I tell the police what really happened that night, unless someone else who was there that night confirms it, he’ll get away with that,’ she said wearily. ‘He won’t admit having any part in Bolton’s death either, will he? That only leaves snatching Yvette and me.’

‘And you can bet that right now, even in a hospital bed, he’ll be working on some plausible story to cover that,’ Dan said gloomily. ‘And he’s got enough money to hire a first-class defence.’

They fell silent for a while, both thinking deeply about the pros and cons of revealing what Yvette did.

‘I think you must tell the truth,’ Dan said reluctantly after some little while. Whichever way he looked at it, he didn’t feel right holding back something so serious. ‘Low as the Muckles are, you can’t let them be convicted of murder when they didn’t do it. You’d have it on your conscience for ever.’

‘Molly doesn’t have any qualms about what she does to people,’ Fifi argued. ‘Yvette told her about the Paris brothel when she first came to England. She thought Molly was her friend then and she needed to talk about it. Molly blackmailed her with it, not asking for money as she did with Frank, but intimidating her so she would keep quiet about what she knew was going on at number eleven.’

‘That’s pretty evil, I agree,’ Dan nodded. ‘But Yvette could have moved away – no one with even a grain of common sense would just stay and put up with all that.’

‘Don’t judge her so harshly, Dan.’ Fifi took his hand in hers and kissed it. ‘She was all alone, she came to believe Molly had almost witchlike powers to track her down. What she’d been through in the war left her very damaged and with tremendous guilt. I honestly think she felt kind of cheated by not ending up in Auschwitz or Belsen.’

Dan nodded. ‘Okay. But there’s more to this than just pinning Angela’s death on someone. Alfie and Molly were never innocent bystanders. Trueman and the other men who were there that night came to wallow in Alfie’s sty because I suspect he provided them with kicks they couldn’t get anywhere else. You said Yvette hinted that there were other young people there in the past. Don’t you think that needs investigating and exposing? It might also shock Trueman’s thugs enough for them to come through with information about him which might make certain he never comes out of prison either.’