‘Aye, she is that, always has been,’ said Mrs Keating. ‘Any news, Peggy, about the murder? Did you get a chance to speak to that policeman, as you walked past? What did he say?’
‘Well then, now.’ Peggy leant in, folded her arms and lowered her voice. ‘It definitely wasn’t the bloody cat. Apparently, she had taken a chocolate sandwich cake out of the press and left it on a plate with a knife next to it in the kitchen. She didn’t expect to die, did Molly. She thought she was going back in for a slice. The only clue they have is a ciggie butt on the outhouse floor, which isn’t the brand Molly smokes. A Pall Mall it was. Who in God’s name smokes Pall Mall? They don’t even sell those around here.’
‘A Pall Mall?’ said Mrs Keating with a note of disbelief in her voice. ‘They only sell baccy, Woodies and Capstan Full Strength in the tobacconist on the Dock Road. Pall bloody Mall? ’Twasn’t anyone from around here, then?’
‘Aye,’ said Peggy, ‘I know that’s what I said, and a policeman wouldn’t lie to me. It was definitely a Pall Mall.’
At the same moment they both spotted Sheila running towards the entry.
‘Powwow in Maura’s,’ Sheila shouted down to them, as she shifted her toddler back into position on her hip.
‘Maura has been knocking for ye, Peggy.’
‘This is more like it, things getting back to normal,’ Peggy said to Mrs Keating as they both wobbled along, Peggy’s slippers squeaking and Mrs Keating’s nose wrinkling at the rising smell.
‘Only ye could describe gossip about a murder as getting back to normal, Peggy, shame on ye. I’ll see ye in mass tonight,’ said Mrs Keating as they both pushed in through Maura’s back gate.
Later that evening, as Maura drew another line through another day on her chart, Tommy stood from his chair at the table and walked over to his wife. He put his arms round her and hugged her deep into his chest. ‘I am proud of Harry, I am. I know it’s Harry and the others keeping the show on the road. If it weren’t for them kids, I’d be a dead man, Maura. Thank the Lord for our kids.’
‘It has been a struggle, Tommy, but we are doing all right now. Things are getting better. We have more money to find and despite the promise from Kathleen and Jerry that they will provide when the time comes, we must pay it back.’
‘We will, queen,’ said Tommy. ‘We will be paying it back for the rest of our lives, but pay it back we will, every half-penny.’
Maura kissed him on the lips and, putting a hand on either side of his face, looked into his eyes. She was now the stronger of the two. The news that Harry had been selected to play Joseph had picked her up more than any tonic could have. For Maura, the essence of her life was pride in her family.
‘Not long now, Tommy,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow will be a busy day and then, soon enough, the days will fly by and she will be back home. On the day the children go back to school after the Christmas holiday, she will be nearly home. The Christmas holidays will whizz by, they always do.’
Tommy nodded. The way Maura put it gave him hope. It sounded not far away at all.
Tommy had never worried about a thing in his life, other than whether or not the horse he had placed a shilling on would come in for him. He now spent hours of every day worrying about the future. He was convinced a new and unforeseen disaster was heading their way and nothing Maura could say would disabuse him of this notion. His fear was rooted in guilt.
Changing the subject, he spoke again of the thought that constantly nagged him and which, in the darkness and privacy of their bedroom, he and Maura discussed every night.
Tommy lowered his voice.
‘I can’t stop thinking about poor Molly Barrett. Me guts tell me that her murder was connected with ours.’ He dropped to a whisper. ‘But we know it can’t have feckin’ been. What is going on, Maura?’
‘I don’t know. The women came in this afternoon after school. Peggy talks to the policemen, wouldn’t she just! One told her they found a Pall Mall cigarette stub on Molly’s outhouse floor.’
‘A Pall Mall? Well, that means Molly’s murderer was a bloody queer, or a woman. No man I know smokes feckin’ Pall Mall!’
The back door latch clicked and Jerry stepped into the light of the kitchen from the black night outside.
Maura withdrew her hands from behind Tommy’s neck and slipped them back into her front apron pocket.
‘Eh, behave, put him down.’ Jerry winked at Maura. ‘I fancy a pint at the Anchor, you up for it, mate?’
Tommy looked at Maura who smiled her approval.
As he moved to take his jacket from the back of the door, Tommy said to Maura, ‘Don’t wait up, queen, you go to bed. I’ll wake you when I get in, though.’
Maura winked back at Tommy and grinned. She heard the familiar, ‘Ye lucky bastard,’ from Jerry, as they walked down the back path.
Shortly after Jerry and Tommy had left for the pub, Kathleen arrived in Maura’s kitchen.
‘How are things?’ she asked.
Casting her eye around, she could tell Maura had been hard at it, as usual.
The indoor washing pulley was suspended across the ceiling and from it hung a row of hovering white ghosts, wafting in the heat thermals from the range, masquerading as school shirts. As Kathleen looked up, she saw an array of children’s clothes and nappies, steaming in the rising heat.
‘No worse than usual,’ smiled Maura.
She couldn’t tell anyone of the horrible guilt she held deep inside. She was now happy to have left Kitty in the convent, happy that not a gossamer shred of shame would touch the family and that they had survived, intact in the eyes of her neighbours. She knew it would be tough for them all and she missed Kitty every single day. But hadn’t she, Maura, been the one revered above the others as the wisest woman on the street? Wasn’t hers the one house from which a child was likely to enter God’s service? Wasn’t it bad enough that everything she had striven for, all her married life, had been stripped from her by that man of the devil, without having to be publicly disgraced in front of her neighbours?
With the help of Kathleen, who was as good as family, she had come through and they were all safe.
Kitty would be home and then everything could be forgotten. Yes, she was relieved that she had left Kitty well cared for and looked after at the Abbey, but she knew Tommy would never understand. The Doherty family had not slipped from its pedestal. That was important.
‘I am still in shock about Molly,’ said Kathleen. ‘What the hell has happened there, Maura? Everyone is saying it is the same person who murdered the priest. What the bleedin’ hell is going on?’
Maura shook her head. If she had a pound for every time someone had asked her that question, she would be able to pay to take Kitty out of the convent on her own.
‘Here,’ said Kathleen, taking a bottle of Guinness out of each coat pocket. ‘Put the poker in those coals and let’s have a ciggie, too.’
Maura took two glasses down from the press and then shoved the poker into the fire, ready to plunge into the Guinness.
‘Jerry nipped to the pub and picked them up before he came back for Tommy,’ said Kathleen, nodding at the bottles. ‘He’s a good lad, is Jerry.’
Kathleen turned her head to watch the end of the poker turning bright red from the heat. She let out a huge sigh.
‘Jesus, I’m worried about Alice, Maura. Do ye know where she is tonight, by any chance?’
‘Alice?’ Maura said with surprise. ‘No. Is she not at home with ye lot?’
‘She’s not,’ Kathleen replied. ‘She went out after she put Joseph to bed at seven and said she was slipping down to Brigid’s. But I just passed Mrs McGuire and told her to pass a message on to Alice, when she got back indoors, to say that I was nipping over to see ye and that Nellie was watching Joseph. Mrs McGuire looked confused. She said Alice wasn’t there.’
‘Well, maybe she went to the off-licence for some cigs on the way?’
‘Aye, maybe, but she had a full packet before she left
. I know, because I ran out and she gave me four Woodies from hers, to put in my packet.’
Maura opened the bottles, which let out a familiar welcome hiss, and slowly began to pour the Guinness into the glasses, which at one time had been the property of the Anchor.
‘Where was Mrs McGuire off to?’ asked Maura. ‘Not the bloody chippy again? That woman is never out of there.’
Maura took the poker from the fire and plunged it into Kathleen’s glass first. The sizzle of scorched Guinness filled the kitchen air, replacing the ever present smell of chip-pan fat.
Kathleen continued talking as Maura sat back in her chair. The dishes were done. The washing was drying. The boys’ shirts were made of the new Bri-Nylon drip dry and didn’t need to be ironed. She could relax without guilt.
‘She said she had been to the boxing club to fetch Sean. Had a bee in her bonnet, she did, about how much training he is putting in. Said Brigid did too much and she was going to fetch him out, to come home and spend some time with his wife and kids. She’s a tough woman, that Mrs McGuire. Mind you, there is no such thing as a soft woman from Galway. They don’t put up with any nonsense. Not like us daft bats from Mayo.’
Both women laughed. Neither was daft. Both were back in control.
‘But, Jaysus, she was giving out something wicked, she was. Had Little Paddy and Scamp to walk with her to the club, she said, being scared after Molly’s murder an’ all that, and Sean wasn’t even there. She then started asking me, had I seen Sean? I thought, Holy Mother of God, here we are, two grown women, out in the streets, worrying about two kids who are supposed to be grown-up. I said to her, tell you what, if you find Alice first, send her home to me, will ye, and if I find Sean, I’ll do the same with him. Kids!’
Maura and Kathleen both shook their heads and took a sip of their Guinness.
‘Did ye walk all the way across yerself?’ asked Maura. ‘Because I don’t think it’s safe, so I don’t. We don’t know who the hell did that murder. It must have been a madman. Ye shouldn’t come down the entry alone in the dark.’
‘Are ye kiddin’?’ said Kathleen. ‘There are police cars everywhere out there tonight. The entire Lancashire police force must have come back from holiday, or summat, because I’ve never seen so many police cars in one street as there are tonight, other than on the night we got back from Ireland.’
‘No?’ exclaimed Maura in surprise as she rose from her chair and moved into the parlour to look out from the nets. Kathleen followed her and they stood together at the windows in the dark.
‘I know it’s weird and it’s just all in me mind, but I feel as though they are all watching my house,’ said Maura.
The two women walked back into the kitchen. As they passed through the hallway, both dipped their fingers in the holy water they had brought back from Ireland, which sat in a small ornamental bowl on a table under Maura’s sacred heart on the wall, and crossed themselves.
Kathleen didn’t want to confirm Maura’s worst fears, but she felt the same. The police were indeed all looking at Maura’s house.
‘They say the cat’s distraught,’ said Kathleen. ‘Annie has taken it in and is feeding it, but it keeps sitting at Molly’s back door, making that crying sound, it does. I heard Annie shouting last night, “Tiger, come on, big boy, come and be good for Annie now, I have a nice treat for ye.” Good job we know she’s talking to the bloody cat. The police probably think she’s some kind of wanton woman.’
Both women roared with laughter at the image of toothless Annie, as far from a wanton woman as one could imagine.
After a moment had passed, Kathleen smiled at Maura as she lifted her glass to drain the last drop of Guinness. The police might have been watching the house, but there was no way they could nail Tommy or Jerry for this. They would be all right.
Life was, in a very strange way, getting back to normal.
Jerry talked to Tommy all the way to the pub. Tommy hardly spoke at all, except to tell him he missed Kitty. His own, his favourite, little Kitty. She had patiently taught him to read and, in return, he had let her down so badly. His little Kitty was sleeping in a place where no one loved her best of all and that broke Tommy’s heart in two.
‘It’s the last leg now, Tommy mate.’ Jerry’s words penetrated Tommy’s thoughts. ‘Once Kitty is home we can really begin to move forward and get back to where we were.’
They bought their drinks at the bar and took the table for two next to the fire.
The bar was busy and the noise and smoke erupted out onto the street as they opened the door.
Tommy picked up his pint of black nectar, closed his eyes and, tipping his head back, slowly let the balm pour down his throat, soothing his fractious mood. Putting his pewter pot down with a thud, he wiped the foam from his lips with the back of his hand before he spoke.
‘Jerry, two of the McGinty kids are sat on the wall outside, again. That’s the second time I’ve seen them out there. Is that man a fecking eejit? I told him what would happen if I ever found those kids shivering outside. I’m going to take them a couple of bags of crisps. They don’t look like they’ve been fed tonight.’
Jerry wasn’t surprised. The McGinty kids had a tough life. Their father, an alcoholic, was never out of the pub. They could be without coal for a week, if his wife didn’t manage to catch him on a Friday night and rescue his pay money before it had all been drunk or gambled away.
Jerry watched as Tommy walked back out through the pub door. He could just make out Tommy’s blurred form through the frosted windows, bending down to give the grateful and hungry kids their crisps. McGinty was in the bar, already half cut, and it was only eight o’clock. The children had been sitting on the wall since their mother had sent them down to retrieve their father, and what was left of the housekeeping, two hours since. They were still waiting, unable to extract him and too scared to return home without him.
Tommy strode back in through the revolving door, a look of fury on his face. He glared over at McGinty, who was propping himself up on the end of the counter.
McGinty saw Tommy looking at him and raised his cap in greeting. ‘All right, mate?’ he called across the bar nervously.
Tommy strode purposefully towards him.
‘Tommy,’ Jerry shouted, trying to avert any trouble, ‘your pint’s here.’
Tommy didn’t hear him; his anger towards a man who would leave his children sitting on the pub wall, hungry and half frozen, was rising rapidly.
While he had been speaking to the McGinty kids, he could see his Kitty. The McGinty girl was half frozen, her hands were almost blue, with bright-red chilblains running down her fingers. Her large eyes were filled with tears from the biting wind. The lad, Brian, wore no coat and the girl had nothing more than her mother’s shawl pulled tightly around her shoulders.
‘Aye, I’ve asked everyone whose gone in to tell him, so I have, but he still hasn’t come out,’ Brian had said to Tommy when they walked past.
McGinty’s reactions were too dulled by alcohol and too slow to anticipate what happened next. Tommy took him by the scruff of his neck and, marching him across the sawdust-covered floorboards, propelled him out through the door.
‘How many times do ye need to be told to look after your feckin’ kids?’ he hissed.
McGinty’s protestations were more of a squeak. ‘What the feck are ye doing, yer mad bastard? Me pint, I have me pint on the bar.’
‘Too fecking bad,’ said Tommy, not wanting to raise his voice and scare the kids. ‘Get fecking home to yer missus and take yer kids wit’ ye.’
The two children were nervously walking across from the wall to their da.
‘And if ye lay one hand on them kids, I’ll smash yer bleedin’ face in. Do ye get that, eh, McGinty?’
McGinty was nodding furiously.
‘He had it feckin’ coming,’ said Tommy to Jerry as he re-entered the pub, picked up his pint again and downed what was left in one.
As he slammed his pint pot
back down on the table, he looked at Jerry and said, ‘I did that for our Kitty.’
25
STANLEY AND AUSTIN met in the Jolly Miller. It was darts night and the pub was full.
They were downing a quick pint after work and then heading off to meet Arthur in a house in Anfield, an empty property belonging to a landlord friend of Arthur’s.
Their instructions were not to drive, but to take the bus and alight at Lower Breck Road, then walk the rest of the way, down a small entry at the side of the house and in through the back door, which would be left open. Stanley assumed the landlord was in the ring, but he couldn’t be sure, because he didn’t even know his name.
Secrecy, and information that was shared on a need-to-know basis only, ensured they all remained anonymous and safe.
‘Why does Arthur want to see us?’ Stanley asked Austin, as he set his pint pot of mild down on the bar. The drink made Stanley feel better. It wasn’t until he had put the drink to his lips that he realized how badly he had needed it.
He had told the doctor that his nerves were worse again. He couldn’t stop the bouts of shaking.
‘I’d have bad nerves, if I lived with your mother,’ the doctor had said, writing him out another prescription. ‘I’ve seen mothers like yours before. They keep a grip on an only son. You need to break free. It’s not too late. Get yourself a wife.’
Stanley promised he would.
The only people who knew Stanley preferred little boys to girls were Austin and Arthur, plus some of the men they met up with, to exchange pictures and photographs. Quite excitingly, last month there had been a cine film on a camera and projector that Arthur had acquired, which they had all paid towards. But there had been no gathering since the priest, one of their ring, had been murdered. That had put the fear of God into them all.
The priest had been one of the few people running the group that were known to Stanley. He had been told there was a bishop too and some very high-up and important people, a politician even, but he didn’t know who they were.
The Four Streets Saga Page 56