The Fight for Lizzie Flowers (7 page)

Lizzie felt the sweat on her top lip as the policeman stared accusingly at her. ‘I’m telling you everything I know.’

‘And you were not aware your husband was alive until yesterday morning?’

‘No, of course not.’

The detective narrowed his eyes and, in silence, slipped an arm over the back of his chair. He lit a cigarette and crossed one leg over the other. He nodded to the papers on the table, a file of
well-worn documents. ‘Me being a recent addition to this constabulary, I’ve done a little research. Your family has enjoyed a chequered history, Mrs Flowers. One brother, Vincent, doing
time for aggravated assault. One sister, Barbara, arrested and cautioned on a number of occasions for soliciting. And your business premises infiltrated not long ago by Commie agitators.’

‘Commies didn’t wreck my shop. It was Frank, as you well know.’

Bray tilted his head. ‘There’s no report of that.’

‘I told the police at the time.’

‘Did you give statements to that effect?’

‘Yes. So did my sister Flo and Danny, of course.’

The policeman blew out a cloud of smoke. ‘Then I appear to be missing some information.’

‘Why don’t you ask Mik Ferreter about the dead man?’ Lizzie said angrily. ‘He was the last person to see Frank before he disappeared. Or is it safer for you to go along
with what villains want and label me and Danny as liars?’

Unruffled, the detective pushed back his greasy brown hair. He slewed round on the chair and folded his arms. ‘Perhaps you’d like to tell me your side of the story then? Since the
villain you’re naming is holidaying in Wandsworth.’

Lizzie felt the sting of frustrated tears in her eyes. Like many of the police who were in the pay of the underworld, Bray preferred to take the easy way out rather than investigate
Frank’s involvement with his one-time boss, Mik Ferreter.

‘I’ve nothing to say,’ Lizzie said stubbornly. ‘You can’t keep me and Bert or Danny here. We’ve done nothing wrong.’

Bray looked at her coldly. In the silence that followed, Lizzie’s heart pounded. Bray stared at her, sizing her up. She looked at Bert, telling him with her eyes not to say anything.

‘Thank you for your time, Mrs Flowers,’ Bray said suddenly, folding the papers and standing up. ‘Mr Flowers is outside, waiting for you. Tell him he’d better stay local.
I might need to pull him back in again. And it’s highly likely that I will.’

Shocked at their dismissal, Lizzie took Bert’s arm and pulled him past the detective. Outside the door a uniformed officer stood on guard. He made no move to stop them as they walked to
the desk.

‘Danny!’ She hurried to where he stood.

He held her gently. ‘What did they want with you and Bert?’

‘We came to find you. Why didn’t they let you go last night?’ Lizzie asked as they walked into the bright light of the day. She lifted her fingers to touch the black and blue
skin around his eye.

‘Bray’s sidekicks were a bit handy.’

‘They wanted me to say we had a plan to get rid of Frank,’ Lizzie said as they walked across the road to the van.

Danny nodded. ‘Me too.’

‘They’re after a collar,’ Bert grumbled. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’

‘Is Tom all right?’ Danny asked when they were squashed safely in the van’s front seats and Bert was driving.

‘The kids are over at your dad’s. Danny, Frank’s been round there.’

‘What?’

‘That’s why they didn’t come to Lil’s yesterday. Bill had a turn and Frank went for the doctor.’

Danny’s unshaven face was grey. ‘Is Dad all right?’

‘The doctor gave him something to make him rest.’

Danny drew his hand over his forehead and rubbed his temple. ‘Seeing Frank back from the grave must have done it.’

‘Gertie said he had a shock, but Frank didn’t cause no trouble.’

Danny laughed mirthlessly. ‘As if he hasn’t caused enough already.’

For a few seconds Danny closed his eyes. Then, shaking his head, he turned to stare out of the window, trying to hide the fury that filled his face.

Lizzie sat silently as Bert drove them towards Poplar. She hoped Bill would be awake and able to talk to Danny. Bill had looked so old and frail in that bed. It was a fact Danny was sure to put
down to Frank’s visit yesterday.

Danny sat at his father’s bed, saddened by the sight of the sick man. Sitting propped by the pillows, Bill looked pale and gaunt. The collar of his striped pyjamas hung
loosely around his scrawny neck. His dad had always been his hero. A man who was the business, literally. He had been a coster all his life. Great-grandfather Flowers had sold fruit and veg from
his barrow and invested his profits in bricks and mortar. The result of which was Ebondale Street. Danny was proud of his heritage; pioneers of business since the days when the East End was all
marshy land and windmills. Great-grandfather Flowers had been a wise Jew. He’d listened to the Rabbi’s advice. And as the island had flourished, so too had the Flowerses. That was,
until Danny’s two uncles had absconded. He couldn’t help smiling at the story he’d been told of the two men, leaving the country with pockets full of gold sovereigns. Bill and his
father had been left penniless. But that hadn’t stopped them building up the business again.

Staring at his dad, Danny thought of the young man his father had been. Slightly built but strong, agile. He’d met and married Daisy Owen when they were both sixteen. Danny didn’t
know if they had wed for love, or if it was just the comfortable arrangement of tough, hard-working islanders, with enough nous to get themselves known as honest, decent folk who sold from shelves
marked at bargain prices. Danny had seen the family album many times. He’d recognized in himself the young, hardy-looking coster who could balance a crate of cauliflowers on his head and
heave it with gusto onto the back of a horse-drawn wagon.

That was how tough his dad was. Yet Bill was a man of soul. He didn’t attend the synagogue, but he’d never forgotten what his father had taught him. Look after your customers and the
customers will look after you. And Danny knew that Bill had followed this to the letter.

Bill’s lips parted in a wan smile. But the smile was slow to reach his rheumy eyes. ‘You all right, son?’ Bill put a hand to his ear. ‘Speak up, you know I’m a bit
mutton.’

‘Never been better, Dad.’ Danny grinned. ‘It’s you I’m worried about.’

‘I’m as fit as a flea, Gawd help us.’ He made a face. ‘What rubbish has Gertie been telling you?’

‘Gertie’s all right. She says you had a turn.’ Danny didn’t want to speak of Frank – not yet. He felt it was up to his father to say. As much as Danny had convinced
himself that his brother was to blame for the old man’s condition, instinct told him to keep quiet.

‘A dizzy spell, that’s all. You don’t want to listen to Gertie. Women takes things to heart. The doctor says I’ll be as right as rain in a couple of days. But I
can’t lie here all that time, done up like a kipper. Help me put my slippers on, son.’ He took hold of the sheet and threw it back.

‘No way, Dad.’ Danny replaced the sheet. ‘No use you arguing. You gave us all a fright. And now you have to take your medicine, or else.’

Bill looked his son in the eye and chuckled. ‘You’re throwing your weight around, young Daniel.’

Danny’s heart contracted; the familiar term that he hadn’t heard in years, perhaps even back to his childhood, rendered him silent for a moment. He loved his father but had never
known how much until this moment.

‘And you’re staying put,’ Danny replied, forcing humour into his voice.

A quick chuckle came from the old man’s throat. Danny saw how tightly his father’s pale skin moulded to his cheekbones. There was a razor cut on his chin that had bled and congealed
under his grey whiskers. Danny wanted to clean it away and offer to shave him. Instead he enquired, ‘Did the two kids behave themselves?’

Bill’s smile stretched over his crooked teeth. ‘You have a fine boy in Tom. He was here, not a minute ago, with Pol. They’ll make young blood for the shop, but perhaps not in
my time.’

Danny knew the business was everything to Bill, which was why, after his retirement, Bill had given the shop to Lizzie. They were like father and daughter, had suffered Frank’s abuse, and
taken comfort over the years from each other. They also both had the coster’s touch for making money.

Danny reached for his father’s hand. He squeezed the lean fingers gently, fearful of cracking them. ‘Dad, you are going to get well and strong. You know that, don’t
you?’

‘I’ve had a good life, Daniel.’

‘And you’ll have more.’

‘A man has always got hope.’

When had this happened? Danny asked himself. This man who had seemed blessed with eternal life, the father who had encouraged him to leave for the other side of the world and seek his fortune,
the coster who even at sixty years of age had hauled potato sacks on his back as if he were only twenty.

Bill drew his hand away roughly. ‘I don’t like this business of staying home. And it ain’t my home, it’s Gertie’s.’

‘It’s as good as. You’ve always said you’d move in with her.’

‘Yes, but not yet.’

Danny laughed. ‘When, then?’

‘I don’t intend seizing up like a rusting old bike.’

Danny shook his head wearily. ‘But you always said you wanted to enjoy your time with Gertie.’

Bill nodded. ‘Yes, but on me two feet.’

‘You make a lousy patient.’

Bill laughed. ‘Don’t I?’ He chuckled and Danny rejoiced at the familiar sound.

‘Listen, do you reckon we should get away after Christmas? A holiday. You and Gertie, me and Lizzie and the kids. A week at Margate or Southend. In one of them nice boarding houses, where
you can look over the sea to the piers and beyond. Like you showed me and Frank when we was kids.’

Bill smiled. ‘And your brother was the reprobate he always was.’

Danny smiled too, and in his father’s eyes he could see only love and affection. He knew in that moment that what Bert had once said was true. Bill was a father first and foremost and
always would be.

‘After Christmas, we’ll take that holiday,’ Bill agreed.

‘Speaking of Christmas, me and Lizzie will come over. Cook the dinner. You and Gertie can put your feet up. Take it easy like the doc said.’

Bill waved this away. He looked into Danny’s eyes. ‘I’m sorry you didn’t get hitched, lad.’

Danny nodded. ‘So am I.’

Bill gave a throaty cough. ‘I saw your brother.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘I suppose Gertie told you.’

Danny gave a soft sigh and looked down. ‘I’m sorry I made that mistake. I thought it was Frank they’d found in the river.’

‘None of us is perfect.’

Danny found his chest tightening. Hiding the emotion that swirled inside him, he nodded.

‘You and Lizzie. You’ll be wed one day.’

Danny held himself tightly in check and watched his father’s eyes slowly close. No more was said as Bill’s head fell peacefully back against the pillow.

From the back seat of the van, Lizzie watched Danny step out onto the darkened pavement of Terrace Street. Tom joined him, shivering in the cold night air. The shadows were
long in the reflection of the gas lamps outside the rows of cramped, sooty houses, one of them Danny’s lodgings. Danny had moved there in the summer, into the care of a kindly landlady, a
young widow who was happy to look after Tom when the need arose. Lizzie was warmed by the sight of the parted curtains. The light shed a seasonal cheer onto the cobbled road. The glass was strung
with home-made decorations and a candle or two burned inside, reflecting a welcome.

‘Why can’t Tom come home with us?’ Polly asked as she leaned out of the van window. ‘You could too, Uncle Danny, if you want.’

Danny smiled, leaning forward to ruffle her hair. ‘This is our gaff, sweetheart, and I reckon we all need a good kip.’

‘You could have a good kip at our place.’

Lizzie took Polly’s shoulders. ‘Danny and Tom will be over on Christmas Day and we’ll all go up to Granda’s.’

Danny signalled to Bert. ‘Thanks for the lift, mate. We’ll walk over to Lil’s tomorrow for the car.’ He bent low and looked at Lizzie. ‘Make sure you lock up
tonight. I know Bert’s kipping in the storeroom. But it’ll ease my mind if I know you’ve taken care.’

Lizzie didn’t want to leave Danny and Tom. But what other choice did they have? They were not man and wife, they were friends, and in the months since Frank had supposedly died they had
become lovers. Now she wanted to hold Danny close, have his arms tightly around her. She wanted to feel his body against hers, strong and reassuring. She wanted him to make love to her and to sleep
with him the whole night through as they had planned for their wedding night. To wake up in the morning and turn over on the pillow to see one another. If their plans had worked out, they would all
have been together as a family. They would have spent the day in celebration with the kids, a visit up West, taking Pol and Tom to Oxford Street to see the Christmas decorations.

Danny had planned a meal at a corner house. He would have driven them to the Embankment and a supper of hot roasted chestnuts. Finally the kids would have fallen fast asleep in their rooms and
Danny would have shared her big double bed, their arms, at last, locked around one another, legitimately. But Frank walking into the registry office yesterday morning had put an end to their
dreams.

Bert revved the engine. ‘See you on Sunday, Danny.’

‘Happy Christmas, Uncle Danny, Happy Christmas, Tom.’ Polly waved.

Lizzie looked into Danny’s eyes as the van moved off. His tall figure and Tom’s smaller one disappeared into the gloom. Polly yawned, slipping down on the old leather of the seat,
and Lizzie drew the child into her arms. ‘Do you think me mum will come to visit at Christmas, Auntie Lizzie?’

‘I don’t know, love.’

‘Where is she?’

‘I wish I knew.’

Polly stuck her thumb in her mouth. ‘She might bring me a present. She could put it under the tree in the shop.’

‘Father Christmas will bring you a present.’

‘How many?’ Polly looked up at Lizzie, her blue eyes dancing under her fringe of auburn hair.