Why Aren't They Screaming? (28 page)

‘And you got a lift to the motorway next morning. They told me.'

‘D'you wanna see the letter? The copy? I suppose he took the real one with him. It's in me bag in the bedroom. Me new bag, Sharon give it me.'

‘In a minute,' Loretta said. ‘We must do something. I'm just trying to think...' She got up and looked out of the window, hardly taking in the row of lock-up garages and the small yard behind the flats. ‘Peggy, you're not going to like this but it's the only thing we can do. You can't hide for ever, really you can't. The police know how to find people, they'll talk to your
mother, your friends, everyone who knows you. And you want to be with your daughter, don't you?'

‘Yeah, but –' Peggy seemed about to argue but changed her mind. She looked warily at Loretta.

‘I'm not suggesting we go to the police, not yet. My husband, my ex-husband, he works on a newspaper. If I get him to come here now' – she looked at her watch and saw it was just after three – ‘we can tell him your story and he'll help us. You can trust him.' She hoped that Tracey would have more ideas than she did about how to get Peggy out of her predicament: accusing an MP of murder, when the only witness possessed a criminal record and had been on the run, seemed to Loretta a gargantuan undertaking. ‘Maybe he could put a story in the paper on Sunday, I don't know. But the more people who know what really happened, the safer you are.'

‘What if they arrest me?' Peggy asked flatly.

‘We'll get you a lawyer, a good one. Peggy, at least you've got the letter – that's
evidence.
We can prove Colin had a motive. Let me ring John. Please.'

Peggy sighed. ‘I got no choice, have I? If I stay here, they'll get me – and I got nowhere else to go.'

Loretta hid her relief. The sooner she had Tracey in on this the better.

‘Is there a phone here?'

‘No, Sharon hasn't got one yet.'

‘D'you know where there is one? What about next door – oh, it's boarded up. What about the other neighbours?'

‘Dunno. Sharon keeps herself to herself.'

‘OK, we'll have to go and find one.'

‘No! I'm not leaving here.' Peggy turned out to be stubbornly resistant to all Loretta's arguments; the flat had come to seem her refuge, and she didn't intend to set a foot outside it.

‘Oh, all right,' Loretta said; it had occurred to her that Peggy's picture might be splashed all over the
Standard
by now. ‘I'll be as quick as I can. I don't suppose you've got any change? Oh, well ... See you soon, And try not to worry.' She hugged Peggy briefly and went to the door, leaving her sitting on the rug-covered sofa. ‘Bye.' She pulled the front door shut behind her.

Outside the block of flats Loretta stopped and looked around. There wasn't a phone in sight – why, she thought, hadn't it occurred to anyone that the residents of Ernie Bevin House might want to use a phone? – and she decided the best thing to do was retrace her steps to where she'd parked the car. She went back along the path past the South Hackney Unemployment Fightback Centre, came out next to the road and saw a red telephone kiosk to her left at the junction with Well Street, next door to the pub she noticed earlier. Inwardly cheering, she hurried to it, pulled open the door and stepped inside. She ignored the peculiar smell, which was more like vomit than urine, and picked up the receiver. As she was feeling in her bag for her purse, the message ‘999 calls only' flashed up at her. With a sigh of impatience she punched in 100 for the operator, but the dialling tone continued uninterrupted. Slamming the phone down, Loretta shouldered her way out of the telephone box and looked up and down Well Street. Had she passed a kiosk on her way here? She didn't
think
so. Coming to a quick decision she turned left, going in the opposite direction from Mare Street, and followed the road round to the left. She soon came to a dentist's surgery and some small shops on the left-hand side of the street; on the other was a hall of residence with a couple of battered cars parked outside. Students, here? she was thinking, when she realized she had come to a large, modern branch of Tesco's. Beyond it Well Street became much narrower, and the road itself was closed to traffic because of a bustling street market. There
must
be a telephone box here, Loretta thought, plunging down the street. Her progress was slow, as she had to circumnavigate queues for vegetables, underwear, and one at a stall that sold only damaged tins, but she eventually reached the end of the street. There was a kiosk, sure enough, but there were three people waiting outside it as well as the man who appeared to be having an angry conversation inside. As she stopped to join the queue, a woman with two heavy bags of shopping at her feet turned and spoke to her.

‘Fifteen minutes, he's been in there, it ain't fair, is it?'

Loretta's heart sank; she wondered whether she should open the door and plead with the man on the phone, but
realized she would have to start explaining her urgency to the people in the queue as well.

‘Have you tried Tesco's?' the woman said, seeing the frustration on her face. They got one inside. I'd go up there meself ‘cept I got these bags to think about.'

‘Thanks,' Loretta said fervently, wanting to kiss the woman. ‘Thanks.'

She turned and went back up Well Street as fast as she could, jumping over bags and an orange-crate in her hurry to reach the shop. The automatic doors opened as she approached and she rushed inside, peering round towards the check-outs for the phone. She spotted it, then realized the shop was arranged in such a way that she'd have to go to the far end and back up the next aisle to get to it. Muttering apologies right and left, she thrust her way through a dense mass of people doing their weekend shopping and turned back on herself when she reached the bakery counter at the bottom. She headed up the aisle to the nearest till, squeezing past a large woman with a half-full trolley, and flung herself at the phone. The receiver was in her hand before she saw the small notice on the wall announcing it was out of order. Close to tears, she hurried outside the shop wondering whether she shouldn't force Peggy into her car and take her to her flat in Islington. Reluctant to waste more time, she decided to have one more try. She went along Well Street the way she'd originally come, stopping when she came to the Indian grocer's she'd noticed earlier. She went inside, marched straight up to the till and asked the young Asian woman behind it if she could use her phone. The woman looked at her uncertainly.

‘Please,' said Loretta, ‘it's an
emergency.
I'll pay!' She produced her purse and started pulling out a five-pound note. The woman waved it away.

‘OK,' she said with a strong East London accent. ‘It's out the back.'

She led the way to a small room at the rear of the shop, and left Loretta to it. Within half a minute she was through to Tracey's desk. A female voice answered and said he was out of the office for the moment.

‘Are you expecting him back?'

The woman said she was.

‘Tell him his wife rang, and it's urgent. I have to see him. No, I can't leave a number. Tell him I'm in London, and I'll ring again in half an hour.' By then she'd have Peggy safely at her flat. Tell him it's very, very urgent, a matter of life and death.' The woman probably thought she was mad, but what did that matter as long as Tracey got the message?

She put the phone down, thanked the shopkeeper on her way out, and set off in the direction of the Forman Park Estate. As she walked, she glanced at her watch and saw that her fruitless trip had taken three-quarters of an hour. What a waste of time, with every police force in the country looking for Peggy! Ernie Bevin House came into sight and she started to run, slowing after a few yards when she got a stitch in her side. She had arrived at the row of lock-up garages behind Peggy's flat, and she realized that if she could scale a wooden fence she could take a short-cut. It was a pity she'd worn a skirt; she felt something rip as she hoisted herself over the palings. Thoroughly out of breath, she hurried across the pitted yard, making her way between an old BMW and a Cortina without wheels propped up on bricks.

Now she was at the rear of the central archway of Ernie Bevin House; she paused to catch her breath and was about to turn right up the stairs when she heard a scream from the first floor. It was repeated, louder this time, and Loretta broke from the trance caused by the first cry, forcing herself up the stairs until she collided with a woman at the top. Loretta struggled to hold the woman, demanding to know what had happened, but the girl went on screaming and fought her off. She turned to look at Loretta from half-way down the stairs, mouthing the word ‘ambulance' before disappearing through the doorway at the bottom.

Loretta put her hands to her face, a chill stealing through her bones. Turning slowly, she made herself take the two steps that would bring her to the open front door of number eleven. She paused on the threshold, stifled a gasp, and walked mechanically forward to the door of the living room. There she stopped, unable to believe what was in front of her: Peggy lying on her left side, her head towards the door and her knees drawn up as if she'd fallen forward from the sofa.
Loretta closed her eyes – she thought she was going to be sick, she thought she was going to faint, she put a hand out to the door-frame to support herself. She opened them: the scene had not gone away. This time there was no mistaking the bullet wound over Peggy's right ear, a star-shaped black hole above which a single fly was already buzzing. Loretta's gaze travelled in a line down Peggy's shoulder and right arm to her outstretched hand. It was then, and only then, that she realized that Peggy's fingers had just released an old-fashioned gun whose lack of adornment suggested it might be army issue. Loretta closed her eyes again and began to scream.

‘You should eat something, you'll feel terrible tomorrow.'

‘I'll feel terrible anyway. I couldn't eat, not a thing. I'd be sick.'

John Tracey shrugged and didn't press the matter. Loretta leaned across to the low table in front of her and picked up the brandy bottle. It clinked against the rim of her glass as she poured herself another generous helping. Aware that Tracey was watching her, she sipped it gently instead of finishing it in two or three gulps as she had the first.

‘Thanks for rescuing me,' she said, cradling the tumbler on her knees, which were drawn up under her skirt. ‘I thought they were never going to let me go. They were even muttering about charging me with – obstructing the course of justice or something.'

‘I know,' Tracey said grimly. ‘I nearly hit that bastard Bailey. I was there nearly two hours before he'd even talk to me. It was only when I started shouting about
habeas corpus
and getting the
Herald
lawyer that they began taking notice.'

‘He must be good.'

‘Who?'

‘The
Herald
lawyer. If they were frightened of him.'

‘He's the best – where libel's concerned, that is,' Tracey said, permitting himself a slight smile. ‘I don't know how he is on getting innocent people out of police custody. I think it was the fear of bad publicity that did it, not me being able to get hold of a barrister at eleven o'clock at night. What time is it now, by the way? I took my watch off upstairs.'

Loretta glanced at her wrist.

‘Ten to two. And it's – Saturday morning, right? I've rather
lost track. I feel as if I've been at that police station for days.'

‘Are you sure you should be drinking that? On an empty stomach?'

‘Oh John, don't nag. It's been just... I can't tell you how awful everything is. I – I don't know what to do with myself.'

‘OK, OK. Listen, why not try and get some sleep? I've put some sheets on the bed in the spare room. You're honoured – they're actually clean.'

Loretta ignored his attempt at a joke.

‘I couldn't
sleep.
After all that? I feel as if I'll never sleep again.' She raised the glass to her lips and swallowed quite a lot of brandy.

Tracey pulled a face and moved the bottle out of Loretta's reach.

‘Well, in that case, do you want to talk about it? Get it off your chest?'

‘Yes. But what about your job? You're working tomorrow – today, aren't you?'

Tracey waved the objection away. ‘They'll understand. I rang the news editor at home as soon as I got your call. I said you were in trouble – he's a good guy. The story I'm doing can wait, it's not the end of the world if it doesn't appear this Sunday. So – what happened?'

‘Bailey says it was suicide.'

‘And you say it wasn't.'

‘I
know
it wasn't. I left her there while I went to ring you. She was going to talk to you, tell you the whole thing. She wasn't
suicidal.
There was no
reason
for her to kill herself. I'd promised to help her, said we'd get a lawyer and all that. She had less reason to kill herself yesterday than at any time since Clara was murdered.'

‘So why does Bailey think...?'

‘Oh,
Bailey.
He says she did it in a fit of remorse and because she knew he was closing in on her. It happened just after he'd given her name and description to the press, you see.'

‘Remorse? Remorse for –'

‘For killing Clara.'

‘Did she kill Clara?'

‘Of course she didn't! It was Colin, Colin Kendall-Cole. The
MP. The one who turned up on Clara's doorstep just after I found her body.
Pretended
to turn up, I should say.'

‘Hang on a minute, Loretta. You're saying that – you're telling me Clara was murdered by a Tory MP?' Tracey couldn't hide the incredulity in his voice.