Last Rights

by Barbara Nadel

  Then, walking back home from Bessie’s, Hannah and I were reminded of the existence of some other, much more violent parties who had an interest in one of the Reynolds girls. I had, I confess, forgotten temporarily about the Dooleys.

  ‘I warned you, you black bastard!’

  We were only a spit from Rathbone Street when Johnny and Dickie Dooley jumped us. Whether they’d seen us coming or just happened to be leaving Canning Town station, I was never to find out. But Johnny had me pushed up against the side of the ticket office, my head pressed against a poster exhorting us all to ‘Keep mum’, as quick as a wink. I like to think that I can handle myself, but I’m not a young man and I’d smoked a lot more fags and pipes in my time than this young thug.

  ‘You’re still helping her, aren’t you?’ Johnny said. ‘My slag of a sister-in-law.’

  Somewhere to my left, there was a flash of something shiny. Hannah saw it too and said, ‘If you hurt him I’ll tell the old Bill it was you. I don’t fucking care.’

  Johnny Dooley turned to face Hannah who, I could now just about see, was being held by his brother. ‘Think the coppers’ll believe you, you old tart?’ And then, turning back to me, he said, ‘Fucking hell, Hancock, you ain’t ’arf got a cheap taste in women.’

  I wanted to say something in Hannah’s defence, but he’d moved his hand up to my Adam’s apple so, for the moment, speech was impossible.

  ‘Now, I heard that some lawyer the tart’s got herself turned up at your shop the other day,’ Johnny said. ‘I’ve also heard that the tart’s bastard’s been seen in this manor. Now, you know that if I find out that bastard’s with you, you and all your women ain’t going to be too safe.’

  ‘’Specially that blonde slag,’ Dickie put in. ‘What’s she? Your—’

  ‘She’s my sister,’ I finally managed to gasp. My heart was racing now. If these animals were threatening my family . . .

  ‘Funny.’ Johnny moved his face so close to mine I could taste his beer-raddled breath. ‘She don’t look like a wog, that one. She looks like a slapper.’

  ‘Then maybe she’d get on well with your wife!’ I said, through gritted teeth. It had only been a short conversation I’d had with Velma about the Dooleys, but Johnny’s wife’s name had stuck in my mind. ‘Your Martine.’

  Even in the almost total darkness, I could see a movement where his face was as he curled his lips into a cruel sneer. ‘Don’t you—’

  ‘Everyone knows,’ I said, knowing that ‘everyone’ was really a very small church, ‘how cut up your Martine was when your Kevin died.’

  ‘Yeah, well, she liked him. He was a good brother, a sort.’

  ‘Oh, I heard she liked him a lot,’ I said. And then, further gambling on the little that Velma had told me, I added, ‘They’ve been seen, Kevin and Martine. She liked him a whole big lot.’

  ‘What—’

  ‘Enough to make a younger brother jealous. I mean Kevin was a big, powerful man—’

  The punch split my lip and, for a moment, I felt it might have broken my jaw too. But Johnny Dooley was a lot shorter than me so by the time his fist had got to my face it had lost quite a bit of its power.

  ‘You fucking—’ I heard Hannah start then a slap and then a small, strangled cry that was obviously Hannah’s too.

  ‘Tell your brother to leave her alone!’ I breathed at Johnny.

  ‘Don’t you ever use your dirty wog’s mouth to speak about my Mart—’

  ‘Where was your Martine on the night your Kevin died, Johnny? And where were you?’ Questions that had been at the back of my mind and wouldn’t go away. After all, if the Dooleys were so blameless, what was this about? Surely not just Vi Dooley’s dislike of Pearl?

  ‘What?’

  ‘Kevin said it was a woman as attacked him. She have an argument with him, did she, Johnny?’ I felt his fist tighten round my collar yet again. ‘Or did she kill him because you threatened to kill her if she didn’t? Did you watch her do it?’

  ‘What’s he on about, Johnny?’ I heard his brother, Dickie, say. ‘I thought you had words with your missus about her and Kev—’

  ‘Shut up!’

  I could have kissed Dickie for more or less confirming what Velma had told me. ‘I’d be very careful if I were you, Johnny,’ I said.

  ‘Or what?’

  ‘Or maybe the police might be interested to know about Martine and your brother Kevin. They might want to ask you some more questions about what you were doing on the night he died. Jealousy, especially between brothers, is a strong motive for murder.’

  ‘I never hurt my brother!’ Johnny Dooley gasped. ‘I was with loads of people down our Anderson. The coppers know!’

  ‘Oh, you don’t have to convince me,’ I said. ‘But you might have to convince the police if they should suddenly develop doubts, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Lay off me and leave Velma alone. She’s just a kid.’

  ‘A kid with a murderer for a mother and a grandmother,’ Johnny said.

  So the Dooleys knew. Everyone knew.

  ‘You don’t know Pearl killed anyone,’ I said. ‘Just like I don’t know whether you, your wife or Father Christmas killed your brother. We’re all in the dark, Johnny, so none of us should threaten people or point any fingers. Leave Velma alone, leave my family alone, and let’s all see if we can find out who really killed your brother and let the court decide. You do want to catch the real killer, don’t you? Want to be certain?’

  I felt his grip on my collar slacken at the same time as his face came even closer to my own. Now I could see him, his little drink-blurred eyes filled with fury, his few crooked teeth set into a snarl that made it look as if he was about to eat my face.

  ‘I loved my brother! He was family.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Beat up his missus, put her in the family way every five minutes and then, just to prove to everyone what a big man he was, had any other bit of skirt lying around too – including your wife.’

  I thought he was going to hit me again, but Johnny only grunted his fury this time.

  ‘But Kevin was a human being who has been murdered and whose memory deserves the truth. So let’s just leave each other alone and let justice take its course, shall we?’ I said. ‘That way none of us gets hisself involved in explaining something he doesn’t want to.’

  Neither Johnny nor his brother did or said anything else after that. They just walked off, from what I could see in the direction of Poplar.

  As soon as they’d gone, Hannah came rushing over. ‘Are you all right?’ she said. ‘Christ, H, I thought that bastard broke your jaw!’

  I took her in my arms and held her close for a moment while the shock of it left our bodies. Where I’d got the courage to say all that, I didn’t know. On just a rumour, really. But Johnny had been shaken. Could it be that he had a guilty conscience? Something had definitely taken place between his wife and Kevin, but whether Johnny had done anything violent to Kevin or Martine because of it was another matter. Johnny and the rest of them had an alibi but, from what I could gather about the Dooleys, they could easily have organised that, using those who feared them. Johnny had been a bit too scared for a fellow with a snow-white soul. And it was probably that and his knowledge about Martine and Kevin, rather than hatred of Pearl, that made him want her to be guilty. After all, if it all came out about Kevin and Martine, that would automatically put Martine and maybe Johnny, too, in the frame and he didn’t want that.

  ‘You’re bleeding,’ Hannah said, as she reached up and touched my chin.

  ‘Are you?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Hannah said. ‘I don’t think the bastard hit me hard enough for that.’

  ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Come back to the shop and let’s get cleaned up.’

  ‘I can’t do that,’ she said. ‘What’ll your mum and them think?’

  ‘I actually think I’ve got very good taste in women,’ I said, ‘so I’m going to ta
ke you home and look after you now, and nuts to what anyone else thinks. And that includes my mother and my sisters!’

  She’d been there, for me. Not all actual wives will do that for a bloke, as I was increasingly sure Johnny Dooley would know. But then the sirens went and new priorities took effect. Some people out and about that night looked surprised, but a second raid wasn’t any news to me. War doesn’t stop to let you take a breather. It’s a close pal of Death, who never has taken time off and never will.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I’d reorganised yesterday afternoon’s half past two funeral to half past ten the following morning, if the Jerries allowed. And, fortunately for the family of the late Sidney Whitehouse, Adolf Hitler couldn’t be bothered to send his Luftwaffe boys back out that morning. Old Sid, like a lot of people in this manor, had been Catholic so we had the pleasure of Father Burton, who came up for a few words with me afterwards.

  ‘You know it’s Kevin Dooley’s funeral tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Thank the good Lord.’

  ‘Been to see the family, Father?’ I asked.

  Father Burton gave me one of his acid looks. After all that business with Kevin Dooley’s ‘first’ funeral and my involvement with it, the priest wasn’t very well disposed towards me. There was something else, too, something I didn’t know until he spoke once again.

  ‘You know,’ he said, on a sigh, ‘I was never very comfortable about that business with Pearl.’

  ‘Yes, I know you—’

  ‘No, not the funeral,’ the priest said tetchily. ‘Pearl, the woman herself.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said. It was really quite cold for the time of year and I was aware that very soon the Whitehouses would be wanting to get on home for Sid’s wake. There is, after all, only a small amount of time you can spend looking at two bunches of flowers that were probably nicked anyway.

  ‘Whatever other sins she may have committed, Pearl didn’t kill Kevin,’ Father Burton said.

  ‘Why do you say that, Father?’

  ‘Because of something she told me,’ he said. ‘You know, out of all the Dooley family, it was only Pearl ever came to mass or confession.’

  So she’d told him something, maybe something vital, in confession. I felt myself groan inwardly. Whatever it was, neither I nor anyone else would ever get at it unless Pearl wanted us to. All the more reason to get Velma, who would, surely, be allowed to visit her mother, in to see Pearl in Holloway. Maybe the child could ask her mum about what she’d told the good Father. Although quite how I was going to persuade her to do so, I couldn’t imagine. How do you ask someone about their confession? I thought about Blatt’s card in the pocket of my other jacket at home and wondered what the situation was with the telephone now.

  ‘You know they say that blood will always out?’ Father Burton said, as he made his way with me back towards the Whitehouse family. ‘Well, that doesn’t work in the case of Pearl Dooley.’

  I put my hand on his shoulder to stop him and said, ‘What do you mean?’

  Father Burton held up a steadying hand. ‘I can say no more than that, Francis.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘No, my son, there are some things we have to work out for ourselves. I’ve said as much as I can.’

  The only thing I could think he might mean was that maybe Pearl wasn’t Victorine Reynolds’s daughter. It would certainly make sense from a ‘bad blood’ point of view. And it’s well known that girls on the streets, like Victorine, do sometimes take in other women’s nippers. It would explain Pearl looking so very different from Ruby, even taking into account their different fathers.

  But whether Pearl was Victorine’s daughter or not wasn’t going to help her or Ruby right now and, in spite of the fact that I probably knew more than most about these women, I realised I needed some help. Ruby was missing, after all, and as for Pearl, well, surely if she had been to Dot Harris and had the abortion, that needed following up. The old girl had, of course, denied that she’d done it, but I wondered how much the coppers had questioned Velma about the time she’d said she’d spent in Dot’s place. Maybe, I thought, if Velma could give them some details about the place, that might help to establish whether or not she and her mother had been telling the truth.

  ‘I told the coppers everything I could remember,’ Velma said, when I got back to the shop and asked her about it. ‘I even told them the colours of the curtains at the street door. But they said I could’ve got them details any time.’

  ‘But was your mum friends with Mrs Harris?’

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘So . . .’

  ‘As soon as the coppers realise or even imagine that two women are or have been “working girls”, it’s just natural they think they know each other,’ Hannah said. Although she’d still been sleeping on the parlour settee when I left to see to Sid Whitehouse, I hadn’t thought she’d be at home when I got back. But she’d been talking to Velma who, I could see, was becoming rather fond of my lovely girl.

  ‘My mum never done anything like what her mum used to do for work,’ Velma said. She gazed at the floor, ashamed, as she spoke. But then she looked up sharply. ‘I know Vi Dooley thinks she was bad. I know she thought Mum was never married to my dad, but she was. He was just a lot older than her, that’s all. He died and left us with nothing, so Mum always says.’

  It was the first time Velma had ever mentioned her father. But he must have died when she was so young, she had no memory of him. Poor kid, her dad dead, her mum in prison and a dead murderess for a grandmother, if Victorine was her grandmother . . .

  ‘You’ll never get Dot to own up to helping girls out,’ Hannah said. ‘Not at her age.’

  No. Dot Harris had to be seventy if she was a day and, as everyone in Canning Town knew, she’d already been inside twice for getting rid of unwanted babies. This time, at her age, she probably wouldn’t get out again.

  Doris knocked on the parlour door then and I told her to come in. She wanted to check on a funeral booking and, as she was explaining it to me, I noticed that she and Hannah smiled at each other. Because it had been Doris who had told me about Hannah’s history, I had been nervous about their meeting up some time. But as soon as Doris left, Hannah told me everything was all right. Apparently Doris had come straight out and introduced herself when she first saw and recognised Hannah. My girl, although not recognising Doris, knew her family so it wasn’t a big step for her to work out who had told me about her past. But the two of them had got on so I was relieved about that at least.

  But now I needed to think about getting in contact with Pearl. I was troubled by what Father Burton had said, as well as the way that Velma’s evidence was seemingly being ignored. It is difficult for the law with evidence from kiddies, I know. I turned to Velma and said, ‘How’d you like to go and see your mum, love, ask her a couple of things for me?’

  She said she’d like that very much, so I went downstairs and tried out the telephone. It was working again so I got hold of my other jacket and took Blatt’s card out of the pocket.

  He said he’d get back to me as soon as he could, but the telephone went down again just afterwards so we didn’t hear anything from Blatt until the following day. Velma, having had her hopes raised, was all right until it started to get dark, but then, when she still didn’t know any more, she went down fast. Silent and, after a while, unmoving, she looked more lost than I’d ever seen her. But then, as I know only too well, there’s no way of predicting when a person’s going to crack. It just comes, that moment when it’s all too much, and the only thing those around the person can do is watch, most of the time helplessly.

  Aggie was due to work the night shift and left at the same time as Doris. I did have a little twinge of fear as they both took off in the twilight, imagining Johnny Dooley and his brother, out there somewhere, angry and full of vengeance. But then I remembered what had been said at our ‘meeting’ and how he’d gone away with his tail between his legs – in the end. Still, just t
he memory of it made my lip throb again. Bastard Dooley!

  Once Doris and Aggie had gone, Nan started peeling veg for supper. Velma turned to when she was asked, silently, but she did it anyway, while I went out the back to fill up the coal bucket. As I came back in I heard the hand-bell ring from inside the shop. Of course I hadn’t locked up after Doris. I had thought I might do a bit of paperwork down there. I put down the bucket, wiped my hands on the old towel Nan keeps by the back door, then picked up my jacket off the banisters. It was late, but when did Death keep sociable hours? I went back through the crêpe curtains into the shop.

  ‘Are you Mr Hancock?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I’ve always found it difficult to tell how old nuns are, especially when they wear the wimple really close round the face. With no hair to help identify the person, the face just sort of looms out at you, like something completely neutral, neither male nor female.

  ‘Can I help you, Sister?’

  She sat down in one of the chairs beside the desk. Normally people ask, but she didn’t: she just sat down.

  ‘I won’t beat about the bush,’ she said, in what seemed to me a most un-nunly fashion. ‘I’ve come from Nazareth orphanage in Southend. I’ve travelled all day and I need somewhere to stay.’

  The voice hadn’t the clipped tones of Sister Joseph, and yet who else would come to see me from there, I couldn’t imagine. Anyway, that the tight-lipped Sister Joseph should come had never crossed my mind. As far as I’d been concerned, my involvement with the Nazareth orphanage had drawn a blank and was at an end.