The Liverpool Rose (39 page)

She reached Houghton Bridge some way ahead of Flossie who had stopped for a moment to disentangle her heel from the tram lines in Vauxhall Road, and dived down the steep bank on to the towpath. As Lizzie had hoped, all was quiet and dark around here, with three canal boats moored to the bank, all of them looking alike in the faint starlight. Lizzie realised she did not want the tangle of explanations, lies and excuses which would be inevitable if she climbed aboard an inhabited boat and was accused of theft, or at least the intention of thieving. Accordingly she ran to a butty boat, moored behind the nearest craft, and with fingers crossed and a fervent prayer on her lips, lifted the canvas cover over the cargo. It was fleeces, bales of them. There hadn’t been the stirring of a sleeper as she climbed aboard. This was an unmanned butty boat, and what better place to hide than amongst such a quantity of warm and cosy fleeces?

With a little mutter of relief, Lizzie rolled herself inside a fleece, so that she was completely hidden. She lay there for a long time, listening intently, but so far as she could tell there were no footsteps on the towpath, neither the click-click of Flossie’s heels nor the heavier ones of Uncle Perce’s boots, and presently, to her own surprise, she found that she was sleepy . . . was going to sleep . . . was asleep.

Packed into the fleece as tightly as a needle in a haystack, Lizzie temporarily forgot her troubles in dreams.

Lizzie awoke. She did not open her eyes but was conscious that a little light filtered through her lids
and that she was being soothed by a pleasant rocking motion. I’m a little baby in a cradle, she told herself drowsily and tried to turn, but movement was hampered by something gloriously warm and springy in which, it appeared, she was closely wrapped. Swaddling clothes! Lizzie told herself. I’m a baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger. But that sounded wrong, pleasant but wrong. Mangers, she knew, were filled with hay, not with fleeces, and furthermore . . .

Lizzie’s eyes flew open. She was neither wrapped in swaddling clothes, nor lying in a manger, nor was she a baby, pleasant though that might have been. She was Lizzie Devlin and she was wedged into the cargo of fleece carried by an unknown butty boat. For one blissful moment she could not remember why she was here, and then everything came flooding back. Uncle Perce had murdered Aunt Annie in cold blood, assisted by Flossie Sharpe, and she, Lizzie, had run for her life and escaped them by hiding in the butty boat.

Her next thought was less a thought than a realisation that the boat was moving, being towed along the canal by the mother craft, and this, when she came to think about it, was the ideal solution to her problem. She could remain snug and warm among the cargo until they were well clear of Liverpool. Then, when the boat’s owners realised they had a stowaway aboard, she would have plenty of time to explain for they were unlikely to drag her off to the scuffers if she chose a lonely stretch of countryside in which to declare herself.

The more she thought about it, the better this plan seemed to be. She knew the canal wound for some considerable way through built-up areas of
warehouses, factories, coal yards and grain silos, so she would have to stay where she was possibly for a day and a night. She had no idea whether the butty boat was being towed by a fly boat or by a company-owned craft or a bye-trader like Jake. Not that it mattered. Provided she kept out of sight for at least twenty-four hours, she should be in the clear.

Lying comfortably cocooned in fleeces, Lizzie considered her options. She could try and escape unseen from the butty boat and make her way to the nearest village, but if she did that she might be pursued by the boat’s owners who would think her a sneak thief. No, on the whole, it seemed safer to throw herself on their mercy, tell them the whole dreadful story and appeal for their help.

Lizzie felt the slow tears begin to form in her eyes and trickle down her cheeks, but she told herself sternly that it was no use crying for Aunt Annie now and rubbed her eyes with the palm of her hands. She loved her aunt – had loved her, rather – but this was not the time to weep. She must sort out in her own mind exactly what had happened so that when she had to tell her story to strangers, it would sound both logical and possible and not merely a tangle of half digested guesses.

Finally, having decided to take her own advice, she began to try to piece together just exactly what had gone on the previous night. She realised now, of course, that her uncle had gone to the tap in the yard with a bowl or basin which he had filled. He had retraced his steps along the route to the privy, carefully wetting the paving stones as he went. Then he had returned to the relative warmth of the privy and waited there until the water had frozen hard before going back indoors.

He must have known that the chamber pot was broken, Lizzie reasoned, and must have given her aunt something to eat which he knew would drive her to the privy during the night. In fact, he had probably broken the chamber pot himself and had not told her aunt, hoping that she would not discover the loss until too late. He could not have known that she had discovered the broken utensil and asked her niece to buy another one. If only I’d taken the wretched thing home before the dance, then Aunt Annie might still be alive, Lizzie mourned to herself now. Although, on thinking it over, she realised that Uncle Perce would simply have smashed the new one under some pretext or other. Having planned the ‘accident’ so carefully, he would not let a little thing like a new chamber pot hinder his dark design.

Next, Lizzie wondered about the pile of bricks. They must have been there all the time, piled up against the nearest house; Flossie had merely moved them so that they became a dangerous obstacle to anyone using the slippery path. She wondered what her uncle would have done had someone else walked into the trap, but realised this was highly unlikely to happen. The icy weather kept everyone indoors, particularly at night, and most households used chamber pots and slop buckets when people needed to relieve themselves during the hours of darkness. No, Uncle Perce had been safe enough in assuming that Aunt Annie, and only she, would hurry down that slippery slope.

Everything was beginning to fall into place. She no longer wondered why Uncle Perce had not taken the direct route from the privies to his front door but had walked along in the shadow of the houses on the left-hand side of the court. He had had no desire to go arse
over tip on his own murderous pathway and had doubtless been eager to get back to the house so that he might hurry Aunt Annie to her doom. He would have pretended that his own visit to the privy had been caused by the same pains which wracked Aunt Annie, and would have urged her to hurry down as he himself had done before an accident happened.

If they didn’t eat something bad, Lizzie’s thoughts continued, he must have given her something. Something which didn’t taste . . . no, something whose taste would be masked by a stronger taste. She knew that Uncle Perce had taken to bringing in a jug of Guinness, saying that it would do Aunt Annie good. Her aunt always wrinkled her nose and complained, ‘It’s as bitter as any gall and thick as syrup,’ but she drank it to please her husband. I bet he added half a bottle of syrup of figs to her Guinness, Lizzie told herself. What a wicked old bugger he is. It’s plain as the nose on my face he never gave Flossie up at all, they simply went underground like Geoff said. But why kill Aunt Annie? Why not just move out, find another house for rent somewhere, and live in it with Flossie? Of course they couldn’t marry, but Lizzie judged that neither of them would care much about that.

She was still puzzling over it when the solution popped into her mind. Aunt Annie was a woman of means now, with the nice little nest egg her elderly relative had left her. Aunt Annie would not dream of making a will leaving anything to anyone but her husband. So with his wife dead, Uncle Perce was now a man of substance, someone who could legally marry Flossie Sharpe and give her at least some of the better things of life to which she had become accustomed. Provided, of course, that Lizzie did not
surface and tell her story. Lying back amongst the bundles of fleece, she began to cry in earnest at the thought of her aunt’s untimely death and her Uncle Perce’s treachery, and it had been partly her fault. If
only
she had not gone to the dance. If only she had brought the chamber pot back with her, as she should have done. If only . . . if only . . .

But useless regrets would not bring Aunt Annie back nor save Lizzie from danger for there was no doubt that if Uncle Perce could lay his hands on her, her life would be snuffed out as easily as a candle.

It was a grim prospect, but one which had to be faced. She must either flee from Liverpool, never to return, or find someone in whom she could confide. On that thought, Lizzie snuggled down into the fleece once more, and presently slept though her dreams were troubled and her cheeks wet with tears, for Aunt Annie had been like a mother to her and her heart ached for her loss.

Despite her unhappiness and the worries which should have beset her, Lizzie slept deeply and almost dreamlessly for the rest of the day, worn out by the terrors of the previous night. She finally woke to find the butty boat in darkness and obviously moored to the bank once more, for the slap and gurgle of water against the hull and the soft rocking motion had ceased.

Listening hard, she could just about make out the sound of voices coming from the towing boat, and then she heard a horse being led along the towpath and guessed that one of the boat’s crew was stabling the beast for the night. She wondered how she would manage, how she would contain her hunger if delicious smells of cooking came wafting from the lead boat’s cabin, and was astonished to realise that the only sound she could hear was that of receding footsteps; the crew were clearly taking themselves off, possibly to a local alehouse where she assumed they would have their evening meal.

When there was complete silence once more, Lizzie wriggled out of her nest and stood up gingerly on the small stern deck, looking around her cautiously. The boat had not been moored in open country but close by a small village; she could see the lighted windows of several cottages and, in the distance, what looked like an inn for its many windows were brightly lit and, despite the bitter cold, its door stood open. By
peering hard ahead, she could see what looked like bright colours in some of the windows and remembered that Christmas was fast approaching. These must be paper chains and other decorations put up ready for the holiday. It was still extremely cold but the icy wind which blew against her face was welcome after the stuffiness of the fleeces. Looking along the canal, she saw that the ice was still thick although someone had cleared a pathway wide enough for two boats to pass so that the lights of the inn were dancing on moving water.

Lizzie looked around her but could see no living soul. She jumped down on to the towpath and went cautiously along to the lead boat. It was called
The Singing Lark
– she could just about read it by peering closely through the dark, for it was painted in yellow letters on a red background – and she thought it was a nice name and hoped the owners would be pleasant people. Having scanned the boat, Lizzie stepped aboard, her stomach churning at the sudden thought that a dog might leap from the cabin fangs bared and hackles bristling. No such thing happened, however, and to Lizzie’s surprise, when she put her hand on the cabin door, it swung gently open, revealing a pleasant, firelit room, empty of any living thing.

Feeling a little like Goldilocks, and watching apprehensively for the return of the three bears, Lizzie stole into the cabin. She was desperately thirsty as well as hungry and was pleased to see a kettle pushed to one side of the fire and a line of mugs hanging from the hooks above the food cupboard. Working quickly, she put a pinch of tea in one of the mugs, added hot water and a spoonful of sugar from the large jar on the sideboard, stirred briskly and then drank every drop. She then repeated the whole
exercise, finishing the second mug with as much alacrity as she had the first. Then she opened the food cupboard. She had half expected to see piles of Christmas goodies but possibly this boat was not arranged as Priddy’s was for all she found was some poor-looking apples, half a rather stale loaf, a chunk of farmhouse cheese and a tin box full of ginger nuts. She cut herself a good hunk of bread and another of cheese, shoving them into the pockets of her coat, then glanced round her for a jug or bottle in which she could carry away water to last her for a while for she had decided to lie low until they were further from civilisation. By her calculations tomorrow was Christmas Eve so she would have to stay in hiding for a while yet. She had decided that Christmas Day would be a good time to cast herself on the mercy of the boat’s crew. Surely they would realise that no one would stow away aboard a butty boat and miss their family Christmas save someone in desperate trouble?

There were a couple of jugs but she realised that they might be missed at once, and this would scarcely make her presence more welcome to the crew when she was found, or rather when she revealed herself. No, it would be better to go without a drink rather than risk discovery and subsequent disgrace, but there were the withered apples and she pocketed four or five of them; they were better than nothing, she decided, and would help to quench her thirst. The piece she had cut off the loaf, and the cheese, were scarcely likely to be missed.

She took one last look around the cabin, checking that everything was as she had found it, then opened the door and glanced out. After the fire-glow the darkness outside seemed complete but it was only for a moment and presently she got her night-eyes and
climbed up on deck, jumped cautiously on to the towpath, and made her way back to her nest in the stern of the butty boat. She would have said she could not possibly still be tired, after almost twenty-four hours, so far as she could judge, of sleep, but events soon proved otherwise. She settled back into the fleece and lay there for a while, listening for the approach of the crew. But she fell asleep to silence save for the occasional creaks as the boat moved on the water and the soft lowing of cattle on the further bank.