“Very well then.” said Sue. “We shall be off there then. Thank you for your time, Mr..” and the man looked visibly relieved.
“Timmins.” he said, finishing Sue’s sentence. “And give my very best wishes to Mr Hanson when you see him.” With that Billy and Sue shot up the path and got back into the car. Billy burst into laughter.
“We’re going to end up in prison at this rate.” he said.
“Actually, that was very lucky.” said Sue as Billy started the car up.
“What?” he said. “Bumping into the neighbour?” Sue frowned at him.
“Not that!” she said. “We couldn’t go to the Royal Liverpool hospital just looking for someone called Charles now, could we? No. Now we have his last name as well. Charles Hanson. Sounds very distinguished.”
“Doesn’t it just?” said Billy, and they set off on the next stage of their journey.
***
Billy was hardly delighted to find that not only did you have to navigate the one way system around the hospital to park up in the first place, but that when you got there the car park was actually five minutes’ walk from the hospital (at a brisk pace) and that it cost small fortune to park there for more than a few hours.
“It’s a bloody disgrace!” he grumbled as they made their way up the street in the direction of the hospital. “I think they’re actively trying to get people not to visit.”
“Oh, stop moaning!” said Sue, tired of his grumbling which, despite the telling off, continued all the way up the street until they entered the hospital and approached the main reception desk. Sue enquired after Charles Hanson, and having been given a ward number, they began to negotiate their way through the numerous arrows on the wall and lifts that led to the ward. Eventually they found it. Nurses busied themselves about the various corridors and beds they passed until they came to what was obviously some kind of ward reception desk.
“Can I help you?” asked a nurse behind the desk, turning her attention away from the computer screen to one side.
“We are looking for Charles Hanson.” said Sue, expectantly. The nurse frowned slightly.
“Are you relatives?” she asked. Billy could not help but notice a slight edge of sympathy in her voice. He decided to try the same vague line that Sue had used at the house.
“Not blood.” he said, and the nurse smiled.
“It’s not really visiting time.” she said, “But given Mr Hanson’s circumstances I can’t see there being any harm. He’s in room 216 at the end of the corridor.”
“Thank you.” said Sue, but the nurse was already concentrating on her screen once more. Billy led Sue along the corridor until they saw a door numbered 216. The door was slightly ajar. Billy knocked on the door and they both entered.
The room was quite small really, Sue thought. Just a couple of small bedside tables and a closed, narrow window through which the roof of another section of the hospital could be seen. The bed in the room took the majority of the space. Wrapped up under the bedclothes was a man. He was well tucked into the bed. Only his head and shoulders were visible, but his arms were stretched out on top of the bedclothes before him. His eyes were closed.
Billy spent a few awkward seconds thinking that the man was dead, but then he noticed that his chest was rising and falling at regular intervals. He was not a well man though, he figured. What they could see of him was shrunken and wasted; painfully thin. His head had no hair at all and dark black circles shone beneath his eyes like bruises. Sue gave a small polite cough and the man opened his eyes. Billy was shocked at that point. They were young eyes. Young eyes, yet an old body. He noticed Sue stifling a gasp before him. She had noticed too.
The man seemed startled, as if he was not quite sure where he was, but then he reached slowly across to the bedside table and dragged a small pair of glasses from there and carefully placed them on his face.
“Can I help you?” he said, and his voice was almost a whisper. Drawn out, as if every syllable was an effort.
Sue considered blurting it all out from start to finish. That would take some time, for sure, and she was already putting the sequence of events into some order in her mind when Billy spoke. Summed it up perfectly.
“The last riddle.” He said. “The answer is, “a promise.”
Silence filled the room. Sue noticed Charles’s eyes go wide, and then, finally he smiled.
“Ah.” he said. “I was beginning to wonder if I would see anyone finish my little trail.” he laughed, and again it was a weak desperate laugh that ended more in a series of gasps and coughs then anything. Sue took charge and noticing a tumbler and a jug of water on the side table poured him a glass and then helped him to a sip of it. “Thank you.” he said. “You must forgive my current situation, I am afraid. Unfortunately it is something that I have had to put up with for some time.” His face darkened. “Though it has been a trifle worse of late.” Then his features seemed to change quickly, excitement appearing in his eyes. “How many did you find?” he finished. Sue put the glass back down.
“We started with the clock. Then the wheelbarrow. Then the shadow.”
“That one was quite hard.” sighed Charles. “I must have been having a bad day when I did that one.” Billy laughed as Sue continued.
“Then it was the candle and the bed, ending up with the thorn the key and of course, the promise.”
“Yes. The promise.” Sighed Charles. “The mirror reversed the longitude and latitude too. I take it you have been to the house?”
“We certainly have.” said Billy. “Though there was nobody in.” Charles smiled at this, and shuffled in the bed, as if trying to escape the weight of the bedclothes.
“You shall have to forgive me for putting you through my little quest.” he said. “It started as a whimsy and grew a little as time went by. How long did it take you from finding the riddle on the clock to getting here today?”
“This is the fourth day.” said Billy. Charles looked shocked.
“My. You are good, aren’t you? Those pieces took me some two years to carve. Such little time...” and his words faded and then he seemed lost in thought, as if far away. He snapped back to the present as if it was something that took him a great deal of effort.
“Though I have made you a promise. I’ll need a phone if you could arrange one to be brought through?” Sue looked concerned.
“We’re not here for any reward.” she said. “It’s just that it is here that the trail took us. Well, your house, anyway, Mr Hanson.”
“Charles.” he said, smiling.
“Charles.” repeated Sue.
Charles continued. “Yet I have made you a promise. If you go and have a snack in the cafe’ and be back in an hour that should give me long enough to get my partner to pay us a visit.” he raised his eyebrows, and Sue and Billy agreed. On the way out Billy had a phone sent in to Charles’s room.
A long hour passed over a highly priced and relatively stale ham sandwich and two cups of lukewarm weak tea that Billy considered to have cost a small fortune. Added to that the cafe was heated to the point of being almost tropical, and was packed to the rafters. Badly piped in guitar music played constantly in the background, like some form of reminder of the possibility of life and music outside of the hospital walls. Eventually an hour passed and they made their way back to the ward and knocking on the door marked, “216” entered the little room again.
This time Charles was not alone. A man of about forty sat on the bed, holding Charles’s hand. “This is my partner, Paul.” said Charles, and Paul rose to greet them, shaking Billy’s hand firmly, and then Sue’s as well. Sue could see Billy frowning a little by her side.
“I believe you have solved Charles’ riddles.” said Paul, smiling. “I must admit they were a little difficult for me though, and I thought he had made it all a bit vague, but you seem to have cracked it!” Charles however, was staring at Billy, who Sue knew was still frowning.
“Is there a problem?” said Charles in a weak v
oice, staring directly at Billy. Paul’s face took on a completely neutral expression as Sue sighed loudly. Billy seemed to reach a decision.
“Not unless you choose to make it a problem.” he said, darkly. Then he paused to consider as they all stood waiting. When he began again his expression and his words were much lighter. “I only know this.” Billy said. “That is to say, if he feels the same way about you as I feel about her...” he took Sue’s arm, his words trailing away. “Then that’s all there is, don’t you think? Anyone who can deny that is in my eyes a fool.” Charles smiled, Paul joining in too.
“Thank you.” said Charles, and Sue thought she may have seen Paul blink back a tear beside her.
“You don’t need to thank Me.” said Billy. “It’s what I think. It’s always what I have thought.” and then he laughed gently. “Just that nobody has bothered to ask me before.”
Paul put his arm around Billy and shook him gently, thanking him, before producing a piece of what looked like typed paper and putting it and a pen on the bed before Charles. Charles slowly but carefully took up the pen and signed it at the bottom.
“Both of you need to sign this now.”
“What is it?” said Billy suspiciously as the paper and pen was passed to him, but neither of the two men answered him. The page seemed to contain a lot of legal mumbo jumbo but had a space below Charles’s signature for both him and Sue to sign. “Ah well.” he said. “In for a penny...” and signed the paper before passing it to Sue, who did likewise.
“It’s just a formality.” said Paul, folding the paper and putting in back into his inside jacket pocket before producing a small cloth bag which he passed to Sue. “Just to indicate that the item inside the bag is now your legal property etc. etc.”
“Open it up.” said Charles, and his voice contained an edge of excitement again. Sue pulled the drawstring on the little bag and opened it up, pulling a single small coin from inside it and placing it flat on her palm. It shone brightly as Billy drew near to get a better look. Examining it she noted it seemed to have some faded, almost medieval writing on it, and a small picture of what was probably meant to be a crown. The metal was odd too. It was obviously gold, but it seemed to have a reddish tint to it as well.
“The Wenceslas Red.” said Charles, proudly.
“It’s beautiful.” gasped Sue.
“It is indeed.” continued Charles. “And now it is yours.”
“We can’t take this.” said Billy.
“Oh but you can.” smiled Charles. “This is your promise. Your reward, if you like.”
“Where on Earth did you get it?” gasped Sue. “It looks ancient!”
“It’s certainly very old.” said Charles, warming to the subject. “I used to be a member of the Formby metal detecting club. Used to travel the country, we did. This is one of a pair we found on one of our trips.”
“It is quite valuable historically.” continued Paul. “It disproves several theories in the field of numismatics in the time of the dark ages. Where they were smelted and the like.”
“Numismatics?” said Billy.
“Yes.” confirmed Charles. “Numismatics or numismatology. The systematic study of currency. Not quite coin collecting. Barely related at all, in fact.” Sue put the coin back in the bag and made to hand it back to Paul.
“We can’t take this.” she said. “We only followed a couple of riddles. It doesn’t seem right.” Billy stood beside her, obviously in agreement.
On the bed Charles sighed. “This is one of a pair.” he said. “Though I have sold its twin, this one is mine to do with as I will. What started as a whimsy has brought you here and you deserve this. Indeed I would go as far to say that I think you have earned it.” He sighed loudly, and Sue noticed Paul’s shoulders slump as if he knew what was coming next. “Besides. It is not as if I am going to be needing it much longer now, is it?” Paul reached out and held his hand again. “And Paul is already well provisioned for.” There was a pause. The clock ticking on the wall. “Take it.” he finished.” Please.”
“Thank you.” said Billy. It was all that he could think of to say, and he carefully shook hands with Charles, and then with Paul too. Sue joined in with the hand shaking. Charles was almost grinning continually as he lay in the bed now.
“Just one thing.” said Billy, getting all of their attention. “Exactly how much is this coin actually worth?”
***
“Six thousand pounds?” shouted Sarah, almost dropping her pad. “Wow!”
Sue broke into laughter, somehow managing to look embarrassed at the same time. “I know.” she said. “We didn’t want to sell it but it was too much to turn down, really. It didn’t even go up for auction. Private sale it was. All arranged by Paul, would you believe?”
“Not bad for solving a few riddles, eh?” laughed Billy. “Makes quite a story too, don’t you think?” Sarah agreed heartily, finally placing her notepad and pen back into her bag. “Our readers will be made up to hear about your story too, I would imagine. Even though it’s not exactly the article I started to write. I’ll let you know when it’s going to be in the paper.” She stood up to go. “Thanks for the tea and what have you. Lovely to meet you as well.”
“You too!” said Billy, showing her to the door with Sue following behind him. As she stepped onto the doorstep she paused, as if remembering something.
“What about Charles?” she said, and the sad look on Billy and Sue’s faces told her all she had to know.
“He died in his sleep about three weeks later.” said Sue. “Paul lives in the house now. He inherited it. That and everything else. We go out there to visit from time to time. Have a drink or two in the back garden. He’s very sad most of the time, of course, but we give him what comfort we can.”
“Ah.” said Sarah, moving away from there to where her car was parked. “That’s really sad. Still. Enjoy your six thousand pounds!” she said, and the couple watched her as she got into her car and then waved as she drove away.
“Lovely girl.” said Sue.
“Yeah. But too nice to be a journalist.” sighed Billy.
***
The couple sat on the patio enjoying a drink as the sun began to dip towards the horizon. Sue was doing a crossword, and Billy was just sitting taking in the sun.
“Everything will need a water tonight.” he said, and Sue agreed that indeed it would.
“I can’t help but feel guilty about what we told Sarah.” she said eventually, and Billy just snorted.
“She’s a lovely girl Sue, but she is a journalist. She wouldn’t have been able to help herself!” Sue seemed to consider this for some time. Although she knew that he was right, she still couldn’t help but feel guilty.
“I know it was a very rare coin, but you shouldn’t have told her it was worth six thousand pounds!” she said, nervously.
“It was a very rare coin for sure.” said Billy. “But she is a journalist, and I suppose you’re right. I shouldn’t have told her it was worth anything.” he laughed out loud, and then stopped as if thinking about what he had told her. “I think I could have told her any figure to be honest. She’d have been happy to think it was worth six million pounds if I told her that was what it fetched at auction. But I wouldn’t do that now, would I?” he finished, taking a long swig of his drink.
“Not even if it was true.” And he winked.
The Last Bomb, Aloise's Café and
Death by Cow.
The last bomb that fell on Liverpool in the Second World War fell on the evening of the tenth of January nineteen forty two in amongst other places, Upper Stanhope Street, Toxteth. I know this for I was there at the time, and remember it well.
You would have thought we had grown used to the seemingly endless series of bombings by then, but I think that we never really had. Of course, we did not know at that time that it was the last bombing raid. As far as we knew it would carry on forever. We were not to know, but that was the last night and that was more than enough.
I left the air raid shelter as the all clear was sounded and found myself in hell. Whole streets were now reduced to mounds of burning rubble. I could not reconcile my position in the sense that what I now saw did not match with what I had briefly glimpsed as I had hurriedly entered the shelter hours before when the sirens had begun to sound. The skyline was in flames. Smoke floated in eerie clouds across wide open spaces that hours ago had been houses, businesses. They were now just piles of concrete, metal and glass shattered across the ground.
I reached down and helped the Irish lady, who I now knew as Brigid, out from the Anderson shelter, which had presumably been sited in somebody’s garden at some point; for it was only there that you would find an Anderson. Now however, it was simply surrounded by rubble.
“Thank you.” said Brigid in her light Dublin accent as I gave her a hand back up to the surface. We had spent the last three hours alone in the shelter. I did not know her and she did not know me. Yet somehow over that time we had forged some kind of bond as we sat in that buried corrugated iron hut waiting to be blown to smithereens. We had both been lucky to find the shelter when the air raid sirens had sounded, as we were both off course on our journey across Liverpool, if not lost. It was difficult you see, to gauge where you were by landmarks when they continued to disappear every night. The city seemed as if it was in flux and flow, and most of it seemed to be falling down.
“Was this part of Upper Stanhope Street?” she asked, and I looked about me. Though it was night the fires from all around made it quite easy to see, if not to navigate.
“I think it was.” I said. “The lower half, anyway. It’s hard to say. I think there used to be a crossroads there.” She followed the direction I was pointing in.
“That building there.” she said, pointing to what was not a building any longer but a burning pile of rubble. “That was standing when we entered the shelter, wasn’t it?” I nodded and she span on the spot as if trying to get her bearings. Suddenly she hitched up her coat that was wrapped tightly about her as some kind of defence against the cold, and marched towards the pile of rubble which had been hours before the building she had mentioned.
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