Paradise Lane (51 page)

Tears poured down Lottie’s ashen cheeks. For some inexplicable reason, she had been emotional lately. Had Lottie been able to steal some thinking time, she might have worked out that her sensitivities had come to light after that meeting with her daughter. Lottie saw the state of her older sister, screwed up the paper in her skirt pocket. No, she couldn’t do it, not just now, not right away. With a level of determination that showed in the set of her jaw, Lottie reined herself in, then turned and spoke to the two men. ‘I realized. When I saw the
Evening News
, I just knew it were Bert. So I’ve come to take our Gert to the morgue, only it sounds like she’s already been.’ Thoughts dashed about in her mind, this way, that way, into and out of corners, each idea colliding with the next. She must protect Sally, Gert, herself. She must . . . Must what? Tell these men what she knew, show them the scrap of information she had found among Bert’s paltry effects?

‘A hot drink, Lottie?’ asked Tom.

‘Yes. And stick a bit of brandy in it. I’m perishing.’ She met her sister halfway up the stairs, drew her down into the warmth.

Ivy turned from the window when the Kerrigan girls came in. ‘You all right, Lottie?’

‘Aye.’

Gert slumped on to the sofa, her eyes beginning to close as the sedatives finally hit the spot. Ruth, motherly as ever, lifted Gert’s legs and stretched her out, made her comfortable with a cushion. ‘Yes, you will sleep now,’ she whispered. ‘And we are here for you, all of us.’

Lottie walked over to her old enemy. ‘She’s a good girl at heart, our Gert. As for Bertie Simpson, he were a damned fool, only he didn’t deserve killing.’

Ivy stared at the latest visitor. ‘Spit it out, Lottie.’

‘Eh?’ Warmer now, Lottie was calming down, though a solution still eluded her. ‘What are you on about?’

‘You. You’re what I’m on about, girl. What’s up with you? No coat, no scarf, no bloody sense. You know summat. You’ve found what they call evidence, haven’t you?’

Lottie inhaled deeply. ‘The paper. I read the paper and thought it must be Bert. So I panicked and ran all the way across town.’

‘And I’m the Queen of Sheba. You know summat, girl. I’d stake a fortune on that.’

Lottie took a cup from Tom, sipped the scalding tea.

‘Will you all go in the other room?’ asked Ivy. ‘Leave me and Lottie here in case Gert wakes up. Any road, you’d be best going home, I think. There’s nowt to be mended here, and nowt as’ll worsen overnight.’

When they were alone, Ivy gave Lottie time to finish her tea before tackling her again. While she waited, the old woman’s mind flitted about over the years, settled here and there, moved on through some good days and some bad. Sally and her little house in Hampshire, Ollie and Rosie, the day of the pitchfork. Maureen wearing her engagement ring on a chain until her burns healed, Gert leaving her husband after the arson attack.

Ivy closed her eyes, remembered the rebirth of Paradise. Folk from London coming up with drawings, Joseph dashing about with swatches of material. They’d taken on carpenters, cabinet makers, a sales team, the best weavers. Then the shops had opened in cities and towns, people flocking in to buy middle-priced furnishings. As the company had grown, interior designers had been hired to reshape the lives of ordinary folk in nice semi-detached houses. The Paradise Look. ‘What do you know, Lottie?’

‘Summat and nowt.’

He would have done anything to ruin Paradise. Worthington was a bitter man with few principles and precious little self-control. He was determined, evil and clever enough to reach across the Atlantic to grab Lottie. ‘Even if you’d got her, she wouldn’t have stayed with you. She’s fourteen, too old to be kept where she doesn’t want to be.’

‘I know.’

Ivy turned her head slowly until her eyes were fixed on the face of her daughter-in-law. ‘What do you know?’ she asked again.

‘Enough.’

Ivy inclined her head. ‘What’ll you do?’

Lottie placed her cup on the small table next to Ivy’s bottles of pills and potions. ‘The right thing for once, Ivy.’

‘Have you thought on it, then?’

Lottie nodded.

‘In that case, go careful. And make sure there’s somebody with you.’

‘I will.’

Ivy gazed at the prostrate figure on the sofa. ‘Think about her. And think about Sally, too. Gert needs an answer, or she will when she’s got used to Bert’s death. But there’s other folk who’d be better going through life with some truths hidden.’ Ivy blinked, thought about her lovely granddaughter. Sally’s real dad had committed murder. And Sally’s mam was here, in the house, with the proof hidden in that pocket of hers, the pocket into which she kept thrusting a nervous hand. ‘She’s always called Derek Dad, but she knows what’s what, Lottie. A murderer? Does she have to be told she were started by a bloody murderer?’ Ivy nodded pensively. ‘Well, I suppose it’ll all have to come out now, one road or another. Eeh, I wish we could save her from that, Lottie.’

Lottie reached out and touched the old lady’s shoulder. Never before in her life had she shown affection for Ivy Crumpsall. But Lottie was learning very quickly that there was a lot more to Ivy than she had ever realized. ‘I’ll stop tonight, if that’s all right. I’ll help you get settled upstairs, then I’ll sit in here with Gert.’ She paused. ‘Where’s our Sal?’

Ivy smiled faintly. ‘Your daughter’s next door with your husband’s first wife. It’s a bugger, isn’t it?’

When the house had settled into an uneasy rest, Lottie dragged Ivy’s chair across the room and sat next to Gert. This was a right pickle and no mistake. Ivy knew everything, but then she always had known everything. Putting the old girl to bed had made Lottie realize how frail Ivy was – huge salt-cellars at the base of her neck, stringy arms, every rib showing through a thin covering of age-slackened skin. But Ivy’s mind remained razor-sharp in spite of the passage of time. As for the physical deterioration – well – even strong folk finished up like that, diminished and dependent.

Behind the weight of all her worries, Lottie teetered on the brink of some happiness, because Sally had greeted her like an old friend. ‘I’m so glad you’ve got a job,’ Sally had told her mother tonight. ‘Isn’t this dreadful? Gert will never get over it.’ Lottie looked up at the ceiling, decided that she would always remember the date, the month and the year, because she was spending this night under the roof that sheltered Sally, too.

Gert’s wide eyes had attached themselves to her sister’s face. ‘Lottie?’

‘When did you wake up?’

‘Just now. What were you smiling for?’

Lottie shrugged. ‘Just thinking, that’s all. Seven years since I saw her, Gert. She’s a right little smasher, isn’t she?’

‘Aye.’ Gert struggled into a sitting position. ‘Were I screaming and carrying on before, like?’

‘Not much. I think you did well, love, considering what’s gone on.’

Gert stood up, swayed a bit, announced her intention to brew up. In the kitchen, she surprised her companion by saying, ‘Funny, but I feel all right now. See, I’ve known all along as how Bert were dead. It were just seeing him that upset me. Only there’s just one thing, Lottie. I want to know who did for him.’

Lottie brought milk to the table, found the sugar bowl.

‘I bet it were Worthington.’ Gert cleared her throat. ‘I mean, why did he change his name, eh? What’s he doing calling himself Westford? And Bert always had a bit of money, you know. When he used to visit me at the prefab, he’d bring me a few flowers or some daft ornament. Somebody were giving him that money, Lottie. Bert never worked except for odd jobs, and the oddest job he ever had were setting fire to Mr Heilberg’s shop down Wigan Road.’

Lottie stirred the tea, said nothing.

‘Lottie?’

‘What?’

‘You’ve said nowt.’

‘I’d have needed a crowbar to squeeze a word in edgeways.’ She picked up the cups and carried them through to the front room, sat down and waited for her sister. ‘I found something, Gert. It were in that box full of old betting slips and newspapers. Part of a letter. From London.’ She pulled the scrap of paper from her pocket and handed it over. ‘Worthington’s kept in touch with Bert all along. It says there about money being enclosed.’

‘“Destroy this”,’ read Gert. ‘Bert’s been spying for that bloody rotten Worthington.’ She glanced at Lottie. ‘You’ve no feelings for Worthington, have you?’

Lottie shrugged, stirred her tea. ‘He got me home, love. That were all he did for me. Then when he said about getting married, I thought I’d give it a go, ’cos he had a house and all that. Only he never come near me, never touched me, didn’t want anything to do with me.’

‘You were lucky, then.’ Gert screwed up the piece of paper, placed it on the table. ‘He did some terrible things to me, Lottie. Before he piked off down south, like. He weren’t normal.’

Lottie gritted her teeth, kept her counsel. She had grown used to ‘not normal’, had serviced men from all walks of the gutter. This sister she had never taken time to know seemed straight, the type who should have had kids, the sort who would have kept to one man.

‘Well, I suppose we’ll never know,’ concluded Gert.

Lottie reached for her handbag, pulled out a sealed envelope. ‘I found this and all.’

‘What is it?’

‘I don’t know, do I? I’ve not opened it, ’cos it’s addressed to you. I’m not one for opening other folks’ letters. It were in the same box with all sorts of rubbish.’

Gert stared at the envelope. ‘Open it,’ she said. ‘Read it to me.’

Lottie, suddenly all fingers and thumbs, tore at the flap, pulled out a single sheet of lined paper. ‘Jesus,’ she breathed.

‘What? What?’

Lottie swallowed, fingered her throat. ‘“Dear Gert”,’ she read. ‘“I’m writing this in case anything happens to me. Worthington’s off his rocker. I can tell just by looking at him that he’s gone crackers. There’s things he might be asking me to do, like burning Paradise and killing Ivy Crumpsall, happen grabbing little Sally and all. Well, the time is coming when I’ll have to tell him to sod off, Gert.

I’ve done things in the past, like the pawnshop and writing to him and telling him what’s going on down Paradise way. Only I can’t take no more. I’m worried that he’s going to do something to me. This might sound a bit daft, but he could kill me. Any road, you’ll only read this if he does, so happen it won’t seem daft to you.

I always loved you, Gert. From your loving husband, Bert Simpson.”’

Gert’s cup clattered in its saucer. ‘Well,’ she breathed after several seconds had elapsed. ‘He’s gone and murdered my Bert.’

Lottie threw the letter into her bag as if it had burnt her hands. ‘Ivy knows,’ she muttered.

‘How?’

‘Well, she’s always been the same, has Ivy. I mean, when I lived in Paradise Lane, she even seemed to know what I were thinking, where I’d been, all that kind of stuff. She as good as told me tonight that Worthington had killed your Bert. And I think the others have a good idea, too. Only . . .’

‘Only what? Come on, Lottie. Half a tale’s worse than no news at all.’

‘Well . . . Sally,’ said Lottie hesitantly. ‘Sally knows he’s her father. She talks about Derek as her dad, like, but she knows about me and the queer feller. She’d be best not finding out as her real dad were a murderer.’

Gert sat perfectly still for at least a minute. ‘She’s got to know sooner or later,’ she pronounced at last. ‘Let’s find him and face him, Lottie. Let’s make damned sure we’re right. We can tell him about yon letter and stop him doing any more damage. I mean, it looks as if our Sally’ll have to be told. But if we can stop him now, then he’ll know we’re on to him and he might just bugger off back to London.’

Lottie gulped back her anger. ‘He wants punishing, Gert.’

Very slowly, Gert turned her head and faced her sister fully. ‘God’ll see to that, love. God and the devil can do more than the courts. For what he’s done, Worthington won’t get the noose or life imprisonment.’ She shook her head. ‘He’ll get eternity. That should be long enough, just about.’

Prudence Spencer knocked on the window, placed a finger to her lips when Lottie Crumpsall pulled back the curtain. She hopped from foot to foot impatiently until the door was opened. ‘Lottie?’ she whispered as she stepped into the house.

‘Aye?’ It was only just gone seven in the morning. Gert was stretched out fast asleep on the sofa, while Lottie was stiff after spending the night on the floor. She closed the front door and led Prudence into the hall. ‘What do you want at this time, Mrs Spencer?’

Prudence crept into the kitchen, closed the door as soon as Lottie had joined her. ‘If what I suspect is true, he’s nothing to lose now.’

‘Eh?’

‘Andrew. If he killed Bert, he’s already in trouble. And if he killed Bert, he’ll be forced to plan the rest of his own dirty work. I’ve a bad feeling in here.’ She clapped a hand to her chest. ‘If he can’t get Paradise back, he’ll destroy it. If he can’t hurt Ivy by stealing Sally away from her, he’ll find some other way of punishing all of us. We must go for the police.’

Lottie was a great believer in hunches. Many a time, she had refused a client, only to hear later that the same man had injured another working girl. This woman had hunches. This woman didn’t need any bits of paper to prove that her husband had killed Bert. ‘We can’t fetch the bobbies. In fact, our Gert’s half hoping as how Worthington won’t be found out. He is Sally’s dad, you know.’ She felt the heat in her face, realized that she was blushing for the first time in twenty-odd years.

Prudence jerked her head upward, as if preparing for the fray. ‘My son came to see me last night. He had just visited Andrew. Victor is not a fanciful man, Lottie. In truth, he’s very much an accountant – all figures and percentages, no imagination. Victor found his father very drunk and raving about Ivy, the mill, Joseph Heilberg. Andrew was vowing vengeance and shouting about Bert Simpson having come to a suitably sticky end. My son had to put Andrew to bed. He is convinced that his father is completely out of control.’

Lottie put the kettle on, found two cups, fiddled about with the tea caddy. ‘We’ve to put Sally first,’ she said.

‘But he can’t get away with murder and—’