Rooney

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ Danny leant back in his chair and shook his head. ‘I’ve told you, this is what comes of totting. I’ve told the lot of you time and again.’ He stood up and reached for his pipe off the mantelpiece. ‘Now we’re in a hell of a fix. You and Bill’ll be for it in some way. As for me, who’s supposed to be in charge of the damn lot of you, I’ll be up on the carpet.’

  ‘But they were only bairns’ pieces, man.’

  ‘Bairns’ pieces,’ said Danny. ‘Bairns’ pieces be damned! Ruby necklaces!’

  ‘Aye. But don’t you see, she must have thrown it away with the old toys.’

  ‘The only thing I can see,’ said Danny, ‘is that this is going to cause a bit of a stink, whichever way it goes. What do you propose doing now?’

  Rooney had come here to Danny thinking that he might supply a solution, but now, to his own surprise, he laid out the plan of action that he had himself thought of earlier. ‘I was for going to Bill’s to see if there’s owt left of the bairns’ toys, and taking them to the fellow…the son, and asking him if he recognised them, and telling him how I came across the necklace.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Danny, ‘you could do that.’ And taking the action further, he went on, ‘You could say that you took the bairns’ toys an’ all; that would cut Bill out, for you never know where this might end. He’s got six bairns where you’ve only got yourself.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true,’ said Rooney. ‘Yes, I’ve been thinking about that. I’ll say I picked up the lot.’

  ‘Where’s me coat?’ said Danny.

  ‘Where you going?’ asked Mrs D.

  ‘To Bill’s.’

  ‘But your tea, Danny.’

  ‘That can wait…Come on.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs D,’ said Rooney.

  ‘That’s all right,’ she said. Then laughing, she added, ‘Oh, Rooney, you do get into fixes. Never mind’—she patted his shoulder—‘I’ll come and visit you in jail. And look…leave those slippers here.’

  He handed her the slippers as he smiled weakly. ‘There’s many a true word spoken in a joke, Mrs D.’

  With the exception of Nancy, the eldest child, who let them in, Bill and his entire family were seated around the small table in the living room. Bill rose, wiping his mouth, asking, ‘What’s up? Don’t tell me it’s Albert again, and the black fellow’s back.’

  ‘No, it’s not him,’ said Danny. ‘Can we have a word with you?’

  ‘Aye.’ Bill looked at his brood. ‘Come on. Get that stuff golloped up and get outside with you.’

  Five pairs of eyes fixed themselves, first on Danny, then on Rooney, but there was no sign of golloping.

  Bill signalled for his wife, who, with utter complacency, was eating a meat pie. ‘Get them moving.’

  ‘They’ve just started,’ she said. ‘Can’t you go into the other room?’

  Bill’s face took on a slight tinge of colour as he retorted, ‘No, we can’t.’

  ‘Here a minute.’ Danny, taking Bill by the arm, moved towards the front door, and there, in a low voice, he roughly explained the situation.

  But if Danny saw reason to keep the matter from the children, Bill did not, for coming back to the centre of the room, he cried, ‘Now look, Danny, it’s a sore point with me. I’ve said afore and I say again, what’s chucked away belongs to nobody.’

  Oh, my God! thought Rooney. He’s not going to start on those lines now.

  ‘That’s all very well,’ said Danny, ‘but a woman’s been pinched.’

  ‘That’s too bad, and it should never have happened, because stuff that’s been classed as abandoned material—’

  ‘Look, Bill.’ Rooney quickly forestalled a debate on Bill’s ideas of the moral rights of refuse. ‘All I came for is to see if you’ve got any of the bits left, to help me prove they were picked up altogether.’

  Bill turned to his wife. ‘Those blocks and beads and things I brought for the bairns, where are they?’

  ‘Oh’—she rose leisurely—‘what’s left of them should be in the bottom of the cupboard. Get down, Nancy, and look.’

  Nancy got down. ‘The monkey’s broke,’ she said, ‘but the blocks are here.’

  ‘There were beads…lots of beads,’ said Bill.

  Nancy stood up, saying nothing, but her hand went protectively to her none-too-clean neck, where hung an assortment of different-coloured and shaped beads.

  ‘Look,’ said Rooney, ‘I’ll buy you a fine strap for Christmas…pearls.’

  ‘Will you?’

  ‘Yes, I will, honest.’

  Slowly, Nancy pulled the beads over her head and handed them to Rooney. Then going down on her knees again, she gathered up the bricks and the monkey.

  ‘I’ll say I picked the lot up together and later passed them on to you,’ said Rooney to Bill.

  ‘You’ll say nowt of the sort; I’ll stand by what I did, and I’ll maintain what I said…Once in the dustbin—’

  ‘Aye, we know all about that, man,’ impatiently put in Danny. ‘But what about the court that recently took the view that the blokes on that particular corporation were stealing ’cause they picked out some lead from the loader?’

  ‘I know all about that,’ said Bill, ‘but that was different…it was in the depot. And once it’s in the shed it’s Corporation property, but not afore.’

  ‘You’re splitting hairs, Bill. You take my advice and let Rooney do as he wants.’

  ‘No bloody fear!’

  ‘Be nice if you lost your job.’

  Bill turned to his wife, growling, ‘Damned good thing if I did! It’d make you go out and get some of that lazy fat off you.’

  Mrs Stubbly seemed in no way put out, but Rooney thought, This is marriage: and his mind made to leap away from the subject. But he stayed it. There were other marriages—Danny’s for instance, and many more like it.

  ‘Well, what do you propose doing?’ Bill turned to Rooney.

  ‘I’m going to take these things up to the house and show them to the son. He seems a decent bloke…I saw him this morning. And perhaps the old woman will remember that the necklace wasn’t with the other jewellery. Perhaps she’ll remember…’

  ‘Aye, it is perhaps. Sounds a daft scheme to me. And that old girl always struck me as being up the pole a bit. She’ll not be able to remember what she did or when she did it.’

  ‘Not a bit of it,’ put in Danny. ‘She’s all there.’

  ‘Well, have your own way about her,’ said Bill, ‘but if you take my advice’—he had turned to Rooney—‘you won’t go near the house. Go to the pollis station right away. If you go and see this fellow first, you could be brought up for intimidating witnesses or something.’

  ‘Intimidating me granny’s aunt!’ said Danny shortly. ‘There’s been no case yet. Look, Rooney, it’s up to you. How do you feel about going to the station?’

  How did he feel about it…and everything else? He felt terrible.

  ‘If you go to the fellow you’ll still have to come back to the station,’ warned Bill, ‘’cause remember, it’s in the pollis’ hands now.’

  Yes, he thought, there was that in it: he’d still have to face the police.

  ‘Well, what’s it to be?’ asked Danny.

  ‘I’ll do as Bill says, I’ll go to the station. But you needn’t come, or Bill.’

  ‘Go on, get moving.’ Danny gave him a shove. ‘Come on, Bill.’

  ‘You won’t forget me pearls, Mr Rooney?’ called Nancy as they went out.

  ‘No,’ said Rooney. ‘I won’t forget your pearls.’

  ‘For a bloke who has nowt to do with women,’ said Bill as they hurried down the street, ‘you manage pretty well…you get into more scrapes than a Hollywood film star.’

  ‘Never mind talking of women,’ said Danny. ‘What we’ve got to make up our minds about is what Rooney’s going to say.’

  ‘That’s simple,’ put in Rooney. ‘I’ll just say I picked the stuff out of the loader and gave it to B
ill’s bairns later.’

  ‘You know you’ll likely be in for it from Bannister, and maybe the office?’

  ‘Aye, I know all about that. But there are plenty of other jobs. I won’t starve. Anyway, a change will do me good. Best thing that could happen, I think.’

  Both Danny and Bill looked at him. But he did not answer their looks, for he was at the moment concerned with himself. Aye, perhaps it would be the best thing that could happen. What did it matter if the Corporation did give him the push? There were the shipyards, the mines, the factories. He’d get a better job, and, like Albert, make more money…and for almost the same reason.

  ‘What says you get ten years?’ said Bill, as they entered the police station.

  ‘Don’t joke, man,’ said Danny.

  Rooney said nothing, until they were in the main office, and there it was he who answered the duty officer’s enquiry as to what their business was.

  ‘I’d like to see the inspector, please. It’s…it’s about a woman you locked up the day. She was wearing a necklace, a ruby one…I know where it came from.’

  The policeman looked from one to the other, then said, ‘Take a seat, will you?’

  They did not sit down but watched him go out. And when he did not return for some minutes Bill, looking about him at the various notices on the walls, said, ‘Gives you the willies, don’t it? I’d swear me mother’s life away to get out of here.’

  Again Danny cautioned him: ‘Be quiet, man!’

  The policeman returned, and with him a sergeant and another man in plain clothes. The sergeant looked hard at Danny and said, ‘Macallistair, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, sergeant.’

  ‘Well now’—he looked at Bill and Rooney—‘what can I do for you?’

  ‘It concerns me,’ said Rooney.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You took Nellie, Miss Atkinson, up because she was wearing a necklace the day. She never stole it, I gave it to her.’

  After a long stare at Rooney, the sergeant said, ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Joseph Rooney Smith.’

  ‘Just a moment.’ The sergeant walked to a door, knocked, then entered the room.

  The policeman at the counter was now dealing with a man wanting to know whether a fountain pen he had brought in two months previously had yet been claimed. The plain-clothes man was casually examining articles in various cubby holes, and Danny, Bill, and Rooney stood stock still waiting.

  The door at the far end of the room opened again, and the sergeant appeared in the doorway, saying, ‘Come in here, will you?’

  One after the other, they went into the room, and the inspector sitting at the desk looked up at them.

  ‘Which of you is Joseph Rooney Smith?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘You want to make a statement?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I want to tell you how Miss Atkinson got the necklace, and where I got it.’

  ‘Go on.’

  Rooney went on, surprising himself with his lucidity. But when he had finished, the inspector did not seem at all impressed, or convinced. He looked across at an officer sitting writing at a table at the opposite side of the room; he looked at Bill, then Danny; he looked at the beads, blocks, and the broken monkey reposing on his desk; and finally he looked at Rooney.

  ‘You say you took these things out of the lorry. Have you any proof of this?’

  ‘Yes…No.’

  ‘No?…No proof?’

  Rooney stopped himself from glancing towards Bill. He hadn’t thought about proof. In a few words these blokes could twist you about till you didn’t know which end of you was up or what you had said.

  ‘That’s a pity.’

  Bill shuffled from one foot to the other.

  ‘Mrs Bailey-Crawford, she would recognise them, and remember when she threw them away,’ said Rooney. ‘They’re likely the son’s toys. He might remember them, an’ all.’

  The inspector stared at him, then said slowly, ‘Yes, you might have something there. But it would have been better if you had…’

  ‘He has got proof.’ All eyes were now on Bill. ‘He never took them things, I took them for me bairns. And Danny here’—Bill’s head jerked sideways—‘Danny’s our overman, he was coming to the loader and he’s dead nuts on us touching stuff, so I stuffed the bits in me pocket, and Rooney, seeing the red beads, pocketed them an’ all. He meant to hand them over to me for the bairns, but he saw they weren’t a bairn’s piece, that’s about it.’

  The inspector again said nothing for a moment. Then he asked, ‘Why didn’t you say this at first?’

  Rooney cut in just as Bill was about to speak. ‘Because he’s got a big family, sir, and we’ll likely get pulled over the coals and I didn’t want him to get into trouble or anything. If it hadn’t been for me taking the necklace there’d have been none of this. These’—he pointed to the table—‘are only bairns’ bits and no use to anybody. You can see that, sir.’

  The inspector moved the blocks about with the point of his finger, and without raising his eyes said, ‘You know there was quite a lot of plate and jewellery taken from the Bailey-Crawford residence?’

  ‘Yes, I knew there had been a burglary.’

  ‘When did you pick up the necklace?’

  ‘Oh, it was afore that.’

  ‘How long before?’

  With the eyes of the others upon him, Rooney stood considering. ‘It was on a Monday. I moved to my digs on a Saturday. Yes, it was on a Monday. It would be November…November the twenty-first.’

  ‘Are you sure of this?’

  ‘Yes, sir; I’m sure.’

  ‘Well, we’ll be able to check this with Mrs Bailey-Crawford. She’ll remember when she threw the stuff away.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’ Bill’s forefinger travelled the length of his nose.

  ‘What?’ The inspector’s mild blue eyes were on Bill. ‘Why do you say that?’

  Bill moved his feet, then his shoulders, and then his head. ‘Well, it appears to me the old girl’s a bit ’centric. If you’re to go by what she stuffs in her bin she must brew about six pounds of tea a week. Her bin’s always full of wet tea leaves. She lives on tea.’

  The inspector’s eyes lingered on Bill for some moments. Then without making any comment on this information he addressed Rooney. ‘You know, of course, we’ll have to go into all this?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Have you anything further to tell me?’

  ‘No, sir, nothing. I’ve told you everything, and the truth…Sir?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Will you be able to let Miss Atkinson out now?’

  ‘Well, we can’t do that at the moment, Mr Smith.’

  Rooney’s heart took a painful plunge downwards. ‘But, sir, I…I swear it was me that gave it to her.’

  ‘Why do you think she didn’t say so when she was questioned?’

  ‘Because…because, sir, she must have thought I’d pinched it, and…and…’ The words, ‘and she was shielding me’, seemed to assume an almost sacredness, and he found it impossible to utter them. He knew that were he to speak them, the meaning that he dared not allow himself to recognise would fill the room and would be reflected from the five pairs of eyes as knowledge to be laughed at.

  Yet without him going further there came an amused light into the eyes of the inspector, and a quirk to his lips as he asked, ‘You know Miss Atkinson well?’

  ‘No…that’s…well, only four weeks.’

  Bill coughed, and Rooney, without looking at him, thought, If he makes any funny cracks I’ll hit him.

  ‘Well, Mr Smith, we’ll have to contact Mrs Bailey-Crawford.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And I don’t think there’s any need for you two to stay.’ The inspector was now looking at Danny and Bill. And it was with something akin to disappointment in his voice that Bill said, ‘But it was me what took the bits.’

  ‘Well, that’s a matter for the Corporation. We’ll contact you
if we need you. Leave your names and addresses in the office.’

  Both Bill and Danny turned and looked at Rooney as the inspector continued, ‘But we would like you to remain for a short while, Mr Smith.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Rooney now sounded distinctly nervous, and Bill, unable to suppress a wisecrack even within the portals of the police station and the inner sanctuary itself, said, ‘Well, so long, mate; see you in Durham.’

  ‘Will you come along to us when you come out?’ asked Danny, when they were once again in the outer office.

  ‘That’s heartening,’ laughed Bill. ‘When he comes out!’

  ‘For God’s sake shut up, Bill!’ Danny turned away, saying, ‘We’ll expect you, lad.’

  Rooney nodded, and when he saw them pass through the doorway a tiny feeling of panic assailed him.

  ‘Take a seat,’ said the policeman from behind the counter.

  Rooney took a seat, and as he did so he glanced at the clock, and was amazed to see it was only a quarter to seven. He had seemed to have done so much and experienced so many different emotions since leaving work that he could not credit that it had all happened in under two hours.

  The pendulum of the wall clock swung slower than that of any clock he had ever seen, and its hand took much longer to move from minute to minute. This was borne out when, after listening to the policeman answering the telephone numerous times, dealing with the report of a lost child, a purse theft, and an almost tearful boy giving notification of a stolen bicycle, the clock struck seven.

  It was almost on its last stroke that the door opened and Mr Bailey-Crawford entered. At the sight of him, Rooney half rose from his seat, then sat down again. The little man looked towards him, but without recognition, then went straight to the counter where he gave his name. A few seconds after the policeman had spoken into the phone, the office door opened and the sergeant came out, and when Rooney saw him take Mr Bailey-Crawford in, he felt as if he was witnessing the retirement of the jury and that their verdict of guilty was a foregone conclusion. He had thought old Double-Barrelled’s son a nice bloke, but no bloke appeared nice inside here if he was on the other side of you, so to speak. He could understand now Bill’s saying that a fellow could be made to half swear his life away…And Nellie; what in the name of God had she felt like when they brought her in? And what was she feeling like now? She was somewhere in here, likely in a cell. God in heaven! He got to his feet, and as he did so the policeman glanced up, and he went over to him.