The Widow Ginger

by Pip Granger

  We all checked ourselves over carefully, then we checked each other, finding nothing except a few bumps and scratches on Bandy and a large swollen nose on Auntie Maggie. She was a bit gory, when you stopped to look at her, but the blood from her nose was dry and there was nothing fresh anywhere else.

  ‘No? Then if we’re all right, whose blood is that?’ Auntie Maggie pointed to a brownish smear on the door jamb, a couple of spots on the top step and a steady drip that disappeared into the murk of the lower hallway.

  We stared down the stairs and then we all jumped as a dark figure appeared out of the gloom and spoke. ‘Is there shooting here? Are the authorities taking us? Please, are there soldiers?’

  Sugar was the first to react. ‘Oh, Mr Rabinowitz. No, there are no soldiers and no authorities. It’s only us.’

  ‘You bloody fool, Sugar. How is Mr Rabinowitz going to find you, Freddie and Antony dressed as bloody nuns reassuring? Leave this to me.’ Bandy swept Sugar aside and stood at the top of the stairs, hair flying in all directions, her bruises already showing blue. ‘Don’t worry, Mr Rabinowitz. Rosie’s just shot a madman. There’s nothing at all for you to worry about. The only Nazi has left, dripping claret.’

  ‘Rosie’s shot a madman? Which madman? How did she shoot him when we don’t own a gun? What the hell’s going on?’ Uncle Bert appeared behind Mr Rabinowitz at the turn of the stairs, followed by Maltese Joe and T.C. My heart sank.

  The last person you want to see if you’ve just shot someone is a policeman, even if he is your dad.

  35

  Uncle Bert was firm and got everyone to stop milling about and sit down. Even T.C. didn’t try to take over, although he must have been dying to, being a copper.

  ‘Right, three things. Who got shot? What condition are they in? And why are you lot dressed as bleeding currants?’ Uncle Bert asked finally.

  Me, Auntie Maggie, Bandy and Sugar all started to speak at once. Freddie and Antony looked warily at T.C. and started towards the door. ‘We’ll be leaving you now,’ said Freddie. ‘Sugar’ll tell you about the ensembles. P’raps you’ll explain this lot later, Sugar. Ta ta for now.’ And with little waves, they were gone.

  It took a while to restore order. ‘You, Maggie, you tell me. And while you’re at it, what happened to your hooter?’ demanded Uncle Bert.

  ‘It was Stanley, Bert. I’d just nipped in to see Mrs Williams about tea and had another go at raising Lizzie Robbins, to give her Jenny’s books, but still no luck. She just ain’t answering. Then I thought I’d make sure everything was all right at the cafe. It was quiet, so I did a bit of sorting for tomorrow, checked the stores and made a list. Then I came back here.’ Auntie Maggie paused for a moment to steady her voice and carried on.

  ‘I’d passed Nosher’s and had my key in the lock when I felt something slam into my back and it was Stanley. He had a bloody great gun.’ Her voice shook dangerously, but held on. ‘He shoved me in the door and forced me up the stairs. All the time he was asking where you and Joe were. I kept telling him that I didn’t know. That you’d gone out together. I was trying to keep him out of the flat, you see, but he wasn’t having it. He clouted me in the nose with his shooter. It’s nothing much.’ Auntie Maggie touched her poor nose with fingers that trembled slightly and then her eyes filled up with tears as she continued her story.

  ‘Next thing I knew, Rosie had rushed out of the kitchen and shoved Mrs Williams’s cucumber in his back and said he was to leave me alone or she’d kill him.’ She turned to me. ‘I want you to know,Rosie, that that was a very brave but stupid thing to do. Saturday morning pictures, I suppose, filling your head with dangerous nonsense. Still, there’s no denying it worked for long enough for Bandy to come to the rescue. I am grateful, Rosie, honest I am, but a cucumber? Really! Whatever next? You silly, silly girl.’ And with that she burst into tears and scooped me up into a soggy hug; it was some considerable time before I could surface to grab a couple of lungfuls of air.

  ‘Can anyone tell me exactly why this madman seems to want to inflict so much damage on you?’ T.C. asked in a quiet, mild voice. ‘I realize it doesn’t take a lot to set off your bona fide nutcase, but surely there must be something at the back of it?’

  Once again everyone spoke at once, but it was Auntie Maggie who was heard. ‘I think we should tell T.C. everything. He can be trusted, Bert, you know he can. He’s not going to do anything to hurt Rosie or her set-up, now are you, T.C.?’

  T.C. shook his head and Uncle Bert, Maltese Joe and Bandy exchanged long looks. Finally, Sugar piped up, ‘Oh, sod it! For Christ’s sake tell him, someone. All that stuff in the war’s a long time ago and what’s happening now is just too bloody much for body and soul to stand. For starters, I don’t know about you lot, but I wouldn’t mind sleeping in my own bed for a change. Get it over with, that’s what I say.’

  So they told him everything. As time was of the essence, or so Bandy said, they kept it as brief as possible.

  As ever, T.C. was a good listener and didn’t interrupt at all. Then he summed up. ‘So, we know the Widow’s wounded, though probably not badly, judging by the blood trail. But he’ll need a place to get it washed and dressed and to get his wind back. His known associate is Kid. Kid and Mary Cowley seem to have some sort of connection as well. It’s reasonable to assume, then, that she knows the Widow and could be aiding and abetting his mysterious disappearances, along with Kid.’ We all looked at T.C. in wonder as he continued. ‘Let’s find the whereabouts of Kid and Mary Cowley. They’re key. Joe, I think you’re more likely to get cooperation from their associates than I am. Can we leave that to you?’

  ‘Right.’ Maltese Joe made for the door. ‘I’ll get the boys’ arses into gear. Bert, you might as well come with me. You’ll want to get your mitts on the bastard.’

  ‘I’ll catch you up, Joe. I want a word with Maggie first.’ Maltese Joe nodded and left.

  ‘Maggie, my love, will you promise me that you’ll stick with the others until I get back?’

  Auntie Maggie opened her mouth to speak, but Uncle Bert’s expression told her that she couldn’t talk him out of hunting the Widow down, so she didn’t even try. She just shrugged and looked away.

  ‘Right, I’m off. T.C., can you keep our Rosie out of trouble? Either throw her in clink or keep a beady eye on her. Loaded cucumbers and shooting villains; whatever next? I bet Princess Anne doesn’t kick up like that.’ He swept me into a giant hug, put me down, and was almost out of the door when T.C.’s voice stopped him in his tracks.

  ‘If you find the Widow, Bert, or his whereabouts, make sure that he stays alive long enough to face a judge and jury, won’t you? I won’t be able to cover for a murder.’ He paused. ‘And I wouldn’t want to. Insane or not, the man deserves a fair trial. It’s his right. He’s a human being.’ T.C. and Uncle Bert held a long, long look, then Uncle Bert left.

  T.C. was all business. ‘Right, you lot. The cafe’s the best place for you to be. Safer than here or at the club because the club’s in a basement and either way the stairs are the only way out in case of trouble. I’ll escort you all round there.’

  It was quite a relief to be back at our corner table in the cafe. I sat close to Auntie Maggie and Sugar and Bandy sat opposite us. T.C. stayed standing. ‘Can I borrow Rosie for half an hour, Maggie?’ he asked. ‘It occurs to me that Hissing Sid or Lizzie Robbins might know where the Cowley woman lives. We can deliver Jenny’s books – that’ll explain why we’re there – and report back on Mrs Robbins. I know you’ve been worried about her.’

  We had to ring the bell several times before Mrs Robbins’s head popped out of the upstairs window. ‘Oh, er … hello’ was all she managed to say before her head disappeared. A few moments passed and we were just debating whether we ought to lean on the bell when she reappeared. ‘Can I help you?’

  T.C. beamed his best crinkly smile and held up the bundle of Jenny’s school books, all neatly tied up with string, that he was carrying. Each one was carefully c
overed in bits of wallpaper scrounged from pattern books. It brought a bit of colour and it protected the flimsy exercise books from tears and grime. The war had taught us that it didn’t do to waste paper. ‘We’ve brought these for you, Mrs Robbins. May we come up?’

  ‘Oh no! I’ll come d—’ Once again her head disappeared, a bit sharpish I thought, as if she’d been yanked. It was probably Hissing Sid giving her instructions. This time, T.C.’s finger was actually hovering over the bell when her head reappeared. ‘Yes, all right. I’ll throw down the street door key. Watch it doesn’t land on your head.’

  We trudged up the dimly lit stairs, past the little landings with their brown doors, one to each landing. The stairs themselves hugged the other wall. At last we reached the top floor and Jenny’s flat. It’d always be Jenny’s flat to me.

  The door opened a crack and Mrs Robbins’s head appeared. I was beginning to wonder if she still had a body and legs to go with it, when they followed it out, a bit reluctantly. She had a large brown paper bag in her hand and she was trying to smile, but you could see it was a strain.

  ‘Hello, T.C. Hello, Rosie love. Thanks for bringing Jenny’s books.’

  ‘That’s all right, Lizzie.’ T.C. crinkled again. ‘How are you getting along? Everyone is asking.’

  ‘Oh. You know,’ Mrs Robbins said vaguely. She kept trying not to look behind her, but her eyes were darting this way and that. I was just thinking that she reminded me of a jittery bird trying to feed when there’s a cat about, when she made me jump by saying, ‘Rosie, I’ve got Jenny’s bird food here. I thought you and T.C. might like to go and feed the pigeons in the churchyard.’ And she thrust the paper bag at me so hard, it split a little and spilled seed on to the lino. She looked straight at me. Her eyes were frantic, but the rest of her was rigid.

  T.C. answered for me. ‘Righto, Lizzie. Thank you. Shall we go now, Rosie?’ And he took my hand.

  I had my gob open to say it was the wrong time of day, and that the birds might not come to us, when T.C. stepped gently on my foot. Mrs Robbins looked relieved and her eyes settled down for a second. We were just turning to go when T.C. turned back. ‘Silly of me. Here’s Jenny’s books; we almost took them away again.’ He laughed reassuringly. ‘Oh. And one other thing – I nearly forgot. I wanted to ask you if you knew where that Cowley woman lives? I know it’s an awful cheek, and I’m sorry to have to open an obviously painful wound, but it would help a great deal if you could tell me.’

  Mrs Robbins didn’t say a word. She was trying to – I could tell by the way her eyes filled up with tears and her mouth opened and closed – but no sound came except a little whimper. T.C. dropped my mitt, shoved me behind him, a bit roughly I thought, and gently put his arms around Mrs Robbins. He squeezed her tenderly and whispered in her right ear, so quietly I almost missed it. ‘You hang on there, Lizzie. Just hang on.’

  I thought she would shatter like dropped china but she took a few deep breaths, nodded once and stepped back into the doorway of her flat. She stood there, holding the bundle of books close to her chest, her arms crossed over them as if her life depended on it. Her knuckles were white and sharp as she clutched the tops of her arms. She looked at me, her eyes enormous, with exhausted panda rings like Jenny’s, and mouthed, ‘Feed the pigeons, Rosie. Please.’ And she was gone.

  We shot down those stairs and round the corner and stopped by the wall, topped with railings, that separated the little cemetery from Wardour Street. ‘What was she trying to tell us, Rosie?’ I explained about the signals. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘We can’t just barge into the yard, then, in case someone’s watching. Do you think you can hunker down and creep along the wall until you can get a good view of the window?’

  I nodded and set off. It didn’t take long. I crept back again. ‘The red scarf’s out,’ I told him. ‘That means “Help”.’ I was swept off my feet almost as soon as the words were out of my mouth and we charged back to the cafe past a blur of astonished passers-by.

  Once through the door I was dumped unceremoniously on Auntie Maggie’s waiting lap as T.C. panted, ‘Telephone?’

  ‘In the kitchen,’ Auntie Maggie answered. ‘What’s the matter?’ But he was gone, so I told her, Bandy and Sugar what had happened.

  ‘Time to rally the troops, I think.’ Bandy was on her feet and it was only then that I realized she was still wearing her pyjamas and dressing gown. ‘Sugar, let’s get back to the club. We can call around on our phone and track Joe and Bert down. We have to tell them to stop wasting their time; we’ve found him.’

  I felt a stab of shirtiness at the ‘we’. It was T.C. and me that found him! With Mrs Robbins’s help, of course.

  Everything happened very quickly after that.

  ‘I’ve got some of the chaps from work turning up outside the Robbinses’ place in a few minutes. I’m off to meet them there,’ T.C. informed us. ‘Maggie, I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave you. A couple of men should be with you for protection very shortly. Meanwhile, don’t let anyone in unless you know them and trust them. Can you call some friends?’

  We called Sharky, but got no answer.

  ‘Keep trying, Maggie. I must go. Be good, poppet, help your Auntie Maggie. Lock the door behind me.’ And with that, T.C. was gone.

  Auntie Maggie bolted the door top and bottom. ‘Right, little ’un, how about a bite of something to eat while we wait?’ She believed in keeping busy and full in times of trouble, so we went into the kitchen and got to work.

  36

  By the time we were dishing up bacon and eggs on toast in the kitchen, T.C.’s coppers still hadn’t come. When we heard a hammering on the front door, we stopped dead and looked at each other. In the end, Auntie Maggie whispered, ‘You stand by the telephone, Rosie, just in case it ain’t who we’re expecting. If I shout NOW, you ask the operator for 999 as quick as you can. Get help. Remember to tell them where we are. Got that?’

  I was awestruck. I had never been asked to make a call before. I nodded at her and went to stand by Uncle Bert’s chair at the back of the kitchen, right next to the telephone. When I was ready, Auntie Maggie stepped out into the cafe and yelled, ‘All right, hold your horses, I’m coming. No need to bash the door down.’ There was a bit of a pause and then she shouted back to me, ‘It’s all right, Rosie, it’s Mr Rabinowitz.’ And I relaxed. I heard the bolts on the cafe door being drawn and then shot home again, and realized my knees had turned to jelly. I’d thought it was the Widow Ginger! I collapsed into Uncle Bert’s chair. Even my hair had been clenched.

  Mr Rabinowitz held out a fag packet. ‘Mr Bert, I saw him. He sent this.’

  Auntie Maggie took the scruffy bit of cardboard. There was a note scribbled on it and she read it out loud. ‘With T.C. Don’t worry, old girl. No monkey business, I promise.’

  She stood quiet for a moment, then started sobbing into her pinny, and fled upstairs. ‘I’ll be back in a minute. Rosie, eat your grub,’ she called out over her shoulder. ‘Please sit down, Mr Rabinowitz. I won’t be long.’

  So I tucked in. What else could I do? Mr Rabinowitz and I found conversation dried up quite quickly between us. He didn’t know a lot of English and I only knew the odd work like ‘schlep’, ‘schtum’ and, of course, ‘nosh’ in Yiddish, which didn’t take us far. Nobody round our way spoke German. Or if they did, they didn’t let on. People were still a bit touchy about German.

  I couldn’t even offer Mr Rabinowitz Auntie Maggie’s bacon and egg, which was getting colder and yukkier by the minute. Eating anything at all in our place wasn’t really kosher for someone as holy as Mr Rabinowitz, so we sat there in silence, listening to me eating and to the ticking of the big clock over the piano.

  After what felt like years, but was probably only a minute or two, Mr Rabinowitz excused himself and went into the kitchen for a glass of water. I carried on eating. I’d moved on to Auntie Maggie’s plate by then, knowing just how much she hated waste. I’d just finished and was moving behind the counter, empty plates
in hand, on my way to the kitchen, when I heard banging and rattling at the cafe door.

  I turned and there, to my horror, stood the Widow Ginger. He pressed his face up against the glass in the door and peered in. His hair gleamed and his terrible eyes seemed to linger on me for a moment, but I don’t think he really saw me.

  His mouth split into a crazed grin, with tiny flecks of froth at the corners. I saw his right hand reach up, and with one thump of his fist the glass in the door shattered near the lock. He reached through the jagged hole and turned the key. Once again, he tried to push the door open, but still it wouldn’t give. Thank God for the bolts, I thought, a fraction of a second before I saw him stumble back into the street, then shoulder-charge the door like an all-in wrestler. He came crashing through it and stopped in the middle of the cafe floor, shards of broken glass and splinters of wood from the door frame showered all around him. A sudden hush followed the awful noise.

  The Widow Ginger stood absolutely still for a moment. His neat, pale head was cocked to one side as if he was listening. The grin was still fixed to his face, as if nailed there. His quiet suit and shiny shoes looked out of place in the wreckage around him. Into the silence came a steady drip, drip, dripping sound as blood from a cut on the Widow’s wrist flowed down his fingers and splashed on to the lino.

  His head lifted and turned suddenly, like an animal that had had a whiff of prey on the wind. He saw me, and was across the room and wrenching my arm out of its socket. The plates and cutlery I was carrying crashed to the floor.

  I struggled and clawed at his hand as hard as I could. Cursing, he changed his grip to the back of my neck and held me up by the collar. His breath rasped in my ear. My feet were dangling inches from the lino, and I thought my head and lungs would burst if I didn’t get my feet on the ground and some air very soon.