A Mother's Spirit (26 page)

‘You will come back, won’t you, Dad?’ Ben asked his father earnestly.

‘Course I’ll come back, Ben,’ Joe assured him. ‘Why wouldn’t I come back?’

Ben gave a shrug. ‘I don’t know why. But maybe it’s what grown-ups say, like Uncle Tom did. He never came back, did he?’

‘Well, he had some unfinished business to attend to,’ Joe said. ‘I told you at the time.’

‘So what if you have some unfinished business as well?’

‘I won’t.’

‘How d’know?’ Ben persisted. ‘I mean, Uncle Tom didn’t know before he went,’ cos you said he was due back when he sent that telegram.’

‘With Tom something came up at the last minute,’ Joe said, and added with a smile, ‘And, no, before you ask, the same thing won’t happen to me.’

‘And you’ll want to come back?’

‘Why wouldn’t I want to come back?’

‘Because you’re not friendly with Mom,’ Ben said flatly. ‘I heard you shouting at each other last night.’

Joe was about to brush him off when he saw Ben’s big eyes staring at him and knew that if their arguing had entered into his life, then he deserved at least a semblance of the truth. ‘Your mother and I have disagreed over something, that’s all,’ he said. ‘You and your friends must have disagreements sometimes.’

‘Yeah, we do,’ Ben said. ‘But we make it up again, and you and Mom haven’t yet.’

‘We will, Ben. Honestly we will.’

‘Mom says that you should never let the sun go down and still be angry with someone,’ Ben said.

‘That’s sound advice, Ben,’ Joe said. ‘Pity your mother and I didn’t follow it.’

Gloria watched till Joe and Ben were out of sight and then she turned and went into the cottage, her heart full of regret. She didn’t approve of what Joe intended doing, but at the very least he risked being injured. What if something happened to him and she had let him go without so much as a kind word? That stupid quarrel, she thought, could have been handled differently.

She had the urge now to take to her heels and run after Joe and say she was sorry, bid him a proper farewell and urge him to take care.

But she remembered his speculative eyes on her as she had stood in the doorway. Surely if he had any feeling for her he would have made some move towards her. Obviously something was wrong in the very fabric of their marriage. She sank into a chair before the fire, put her head in her hands and wept.

As the train drew nearer to Birmingham, Joe told himself to put all thoughts of Gloria and the job in the camp to one side, because he was on a mission. The whole purpose of this weekend was not just to see Molly, but to help Tom track Finch down and deal with him, and as soon as possible. He had no room in his mind for anything but hatred for the man.

Tom was waiting for him at New Street Station, as Joe knew he would be, and he was delighted to see his brother was a more contented and happier man than he had ever seen. They had the carriage to themselves on the train that was taking them on the last leg of their journey, to Boldmere Road in Sutton Coldfield, and Joe was glad of it because he wanted to impress upon Tom that Finch was his problem and that he would deal with him.

First, though, Tom pointed out some of the bomb damage as the train travelled out of the city centre. ‘I was shocked to the core when I first came. I wasn’t surprised at the numbers of dead and injured, though of course it was a terrible tragedy, but I was surprised, looking at the destruction, that so many were left alive,’ he said.

‘It is a terrible way to live,’ Joe told him. ‘Cowering night after night in a shelter as Gloria and Ben did, hearing the droning planes above you and the whine and whistle of the bombs and the crashes of the explosions. It was small wonder that Ben was a nervous wreck when he first went to Ireland, but the very worst thing of all was the loss of so many good friends. Even Ben lost friends he was at school with.’

‘That must have been dreadful.’

‘It was,’ Joe said. ‘And often I had to deal with the aftermath of the raids, trying to rescue as many as I could. Gloria doesn’t know the half of it. I couldn’t ever bring myself to tell her. It would upset her so much. It’s an horrendous way to wage war on innocent men, women and children. But another innocent victim is Aggie, and Finch is going to pay for what he did. So don’t forget, this is my fight.’

‘Joe, I don’t think you know what you are taking on.’

‘I do,’ Joe insisted. ‘You keep watch. I don’t want the two of us to end up in gaol.’

‘I told you what happened to that man Aggie was engaged to marry.’

‘Yes, but as you also said, Finch knows nothing about us,’ Joe reminded him. ‘We have the element of surprise.’

‘Are you absolutely sure about this?’

‘As sure as I have ever been about anything.’

‘Come on then,’ Tom said, as the train slowed. ‘This is Wylde Green. Boldmere Road is only a step from here.’

‘No sign of much bomb damage here, at any rate,’ Joe said as they walked through tree-lined roads.

‘No, Sutton Coldfield got away light in comparison to some places,’ Tom said. ‘No industry, you see, though they have camps of soldiers Jerry mustn’t have known about. And here we are,’ he went on, opening the little gate that led to a very small garden, the large house set back only slightly from the road.

He opened the door and led the way up the first flight of stairs then the second, saying as he did so, ‘I was lucky to get this. I was desperate to get Aggie away and I had searched all morning. I was in the estate agent’s when a young man came in to drop keys off. We got talking, as you do, and he said he had just finished renovating this house, which had been turned into three flats, and he understood the top one was empty if I was interested.’

‘You were lucky.’

‘I know I was,’ Tom said. ‘Property is at a premium, and any with money are doing what my landlord has done: buying up big houses and converting them.’

‘Makes sense.’

‘I’ll say,’ Tom said. ‘I’d do it myself if I had the wherewithal.’

Aggie had heard them on the stairs and now she opened the door. Joe looked at the woman he hadn’t seen for over forty years. It was a very emotional moment, for he never thought he would see Aggie again in the whole of his life.

She was still slender, and though her hair was streaked with grey strands and her face showed the march of the years, her eyes were dancing in her head, and her voice just as soft as he remembered.

‘Welcome, Joe. A thousand times welcome,’ she said.

Then she threw her arms around him and hugged him tight and his eyes grew moist as he realised that, despite all that had happened to her, the essence of Aggie was still there.

He could not understand the mind of the man who would wish to hurt and abuse such a lovely person, and fury against Finch coursed through him. He hid it well, though, for Aggie must have no idea of what he intended to do that night.

After a meal, Tom asked Aggie if she minded him and Joe going out for a few jars. Aggie had no objection at all, but didn’t say that she had a date with Paul Simmons that evening, for their relationship was tentative and very new.

‘You won’t be lonely on your own?’ Tom asked anxiously.

‘I am not a child to be minded,’ she said with a smile. ‘Go and enjoy yourselves.’

‘Aggie is another like you,’ Joe said as they reached the street. ‘She hasn’t a nasty bone in her body.’

‘And with Finch dealt with, the last shreds of fear will fall from her,’ Tom said. ‘Let’s hope that will be tonight.’

Tom had the name of the club that Finch used and he and Joe located it easily, as it was on one of the roads off Broad Street that led down to the canal. It wasn’t open and they didn’t expect it to be, for people went to these places when others were thinking of going to bed. Not wanting to be spotted hanging about, and also to waste time, they went off to a nearby pub, not to drink too much, but just enough to fuel the rage building up in Joe.

It was as they finished their second pint and the clock read ten o’clock that Joe said, ‘Let’s go. I’m ready.’

He knew what Finch looked like, for Tom had shown him a picture from the
Evening Mail
where he had been photographed opening something or other, but in the blackout the darkness was almost complete. Joe wondered if they might not recognise him until it was too late, but a
bonus was they could go right up by the door and the few now beginning to filter into the club wouldn’t know they were there.

Finch came by taxi. They heard his nasal tones as he talked to the taxi driver. Then he got out and turned on the torch he held to see the money in his wallet, and they knew they had their man and that he was alone.

Joe stealthily moved forward. He waited until the taxi had driven off and Finch was almost at the door of the club, and then he pounced. Finch, taken totally unawares, gave a yelp of surprise and alarm, before a hand was slapped across his mouth so hard that he felt his teeth bruising his lips. The other arm held him so tightly that he was having trouble drawing breath and was unable to struggle much, as Joe virtually carried him to the towpath where he threw him to the ground with force.

He then pulled him to his feet and began pummelling into him. Tom melted into the darkness to watch the shadowy figures who were illuminated duskily now and then by the moon peeping out from behind the clouds. He saw Joe punching Finch from side to side, parrying his efforts to defend himself with ease.

Joe suddenly powered a hefty punch to Finch’s abdomen. ‘That’s for Aggie,’ he ground out, and Finch groaned and staggered, but recovered his balance as the name reverberated in his head.

After extensive searches had failed to locate Aggie, he had assumed – everyone had assumed – that she had thrown herself into the canal, and he had been annoyed that she had escaped his clutches. Now it seemed the bitch was still alive and this man trying to use him as a punchbag had something to do with her escape. With an angered cry he fell upon his assailant with renewed vigour.

Joe was ready for him, however. He punched Finch hard in the face, and then dealt another to his abdomen, doubling him up. The next blow caused Finch to fall to his knees.

Then his hands, which he put out to save himself, came in contact with a hefty lump of wood on the ground and he got to his feet clutching it.

‘Look out!’ Tom called when, just for a moment in the moonlight, he had seen Finch circling Joe with the wood held menacingly in his hands.

‘Come on, big boy,’ Finch taunted. ‘Let’s see what you are made of now.’

Joe lunged and Finch caught him a mighty blow to the side of the head which might have rendered a lesser man unconscious, but Joe was so angry he was only momentarily stunned, which gave Finch time to deliver a stinging blow to his shoulder. Joe staggered and struggled to regain his balance, and Tom gasped. But Finch too was tiring and when Joe saw him raise the club again, he ducked beneath it and drove first his right fist and then his left into Finch’s unprotected stomach.

He fell to the ground and Joe was on top of him immediately, wrenching the wood from his hands. For a moment he raised it and had the desire to bring it crashing down on Finch’s head. He saw that Finch anticipated this. He had shut his eyes and was whimpering in fear, and his whole body was shaking. Joe looked at him in disgust, threw away the wood, and heard it plop as it hit the water in the canal. Finch, seeing that he was off guard for a moment, caught him with a left hook that snapped his neck back.

Joe said later that was when a sort of red mist filled his mind and through it he saw his lovely, kind and gentle sister being subjected to incredible abuse at the hands of the man beneath him. By God, he thought, he would make him pay for that.

He dragged him to his feet. ‘Now fight fair, you slimy bastard,’ he growled out, and launched into him immediately.

After that, Joe didn’t hear Finch’s groans or moans. Nor did he feel any punches that made their mark as he pummelled his prey without mercy until he fell to the ground in an
unconscious heap. Then he lifted his boot and kicked him and would have done so again, but Tom came forward and put a hand on his arm.

‘Hasn’t he had enough?’

‘Not while he breathes, no.’

‘Joe …’ Tom knew what it was to take another’s life and he didn’t want Joe to have that on his conscience.

‘Don’t pretend that this is some decent human being that I am kicking the shit out of,’ Joe said angrily. ‘He is a brutal, filthy rat, and rats deserve no mercy.’

‘And you have given him none,’ Tom said gently. ‘But it’s over now. Let’s go home.’

Tom’s words, soft though they were, permeated Joe’s brain and he shook his head to rid himself of the red mist.

‘You all right?’ Tom asked.

Joe nodded. ‘I am now.’ He looked at the unconscious man in a heap on the ground in front of him and he said, ‘Is he dead?’

Tom bent over Finch to check that a pulse was still beating in his neck. ‘No, he is alive,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘Come on. Let’s get out of here quick.’

That’s when they heard the scraping scratching noise and they were immediately alert. They didn’t turn on their torches, but they had no need to because the moon was full and now uncovered by cloud. They could plainly see the derelict warehouses and the remains of a factory, and in the middle of that, sitting on a crate, cleaning his whiskers, was a rat.

Joe sighed with relief and gave a rueful smile as he said to Tom, ‘Aren’t we the big men? Frightened of a bloody rat.’

‘Aye,’ Tom agreed. ‘But let’s away now. To hang about here is madness.’ They started up the road and hadn’t gone that far when they heard the unmistakable sound of a tremendous splash.

They looked at one another in alarm and then dashed back
down to the towpath. It was deserted, but they both heard the sound of running footsteps disappearing into the night. Tom ran to the canal and playing his torch on the water, saw the body of Finch being sucked under, and he watched dispassionately until it had quite disappeared.

‘Someone disliked the bastard as much as we did,’ Joe said as he joined his brother. ‘See anything?’