Micah was still working on Harry when a doctor joined them, pushing Micah and Judy aside. The police followed and ran out through the gates, five minutes too late.
Edyth watched, mesmerised, as two porters and a nurse lifted the tall slim body of her brother on to a stretcher and carried him into the hospital.
At midday, Micah walked out of the office where he had been talking to a senior police officer and into the waiting room to see Edyth and Judy sitting bolt upright and blinking hard – he suspected in an effort to stay awake. Aled was sitting across the room from them, flanked by a protective guard of four police officers. Micah couldn’t help thinking that all the precautions were too late.
Edyth turned her dry-eyed, anguished face to Micah’s. ‘Any news?’
‘I’ve just seen a doctor. Harry is out of surgery and out of danger. But they won’t let us see him or wait any longer. Apparently we’re disrupting the normal routine of the hospital.’
‘You most certainly are.’ A sister bustled in carrying a brown paper and string carrier stamped with ROYAL INFIRMARY, PATIENTS’ PROPERTY. She went to Edyth. ‘You are Mr Harry Evans’s sister?’
‘I am.’ Edyth reached for the bag.
‘Visiting is every Wednesday evening, from six o’clock until seven, and Saturday afternoon, three until four. Only one telephone call a day permitted to enquire after the patient.’ She thawed a little when she saw the pain and exhaustion in Edyth’s eyes. ‘Mr Evans is doing fine. If you have to get stabbed, he chose the right place to do it; outside a hospital.’
‘And David Ellis?’ Edyth dreaded the telephone calls she would have to make to her parents and to Mary.
‘As well as can be expected and resting comfortably.’ Unable to listen to any more platitudes after the long night and morning, Micah said, ‘I’ll meet you and Judy outside, Edyth. If you have the keys to Harry’s car, I’ll drive you home.’
‘If you don’t, Edyth, you can take my car,’ Aled offered.
‘Harry had his somewhere.’ Edyth rummaged in the carrier bag and pulled them out. She gave them to Micah.
Aled looked to Micah. ‘Micah –’
‘It’s been a long night, I’ll see you later, Aled.’
Aled nodded and turned to the police. ‘I’ve heard what I wanted to. I’ll go with you to the station to finish making my statement.’
Micah walked out of the front door of the infirmary ahead of Judy and Edyth. A porter was scrubbing blood from the area around the cars. A thin watery sun shone down from a cloudy sky and all the stonework in the yard was glistening and damp from a recent downpour.
‘You might not have saved Aiden Collins’s life, Micah, but you saved Harry Evans’s.’ The doctor who had operated on Aiden was leaning against a wall, smoking a cigarette. He offered the packet to Micah, and Micah took one.
‘I did what anyone would have done,’ Micah said.
‘You did what only a doctor could have done. You clamped the left gastric artery. If you hadn’t, Harry Evans would have bled to death before he even reached theatre.’
‘It’s just as well that he was stabbed outside the infirmary.’ Micah turned up the collar on his shirt as rain spattered down.
‘It’s just as well that you were around, Micah. You’re wasted as a pastor.’
‘Have you been talking to my sister?’ Micah bent his head to the match the doctor struck.
‘No, why do you ask?’
‘No reason.’
Micah saw Edyth and Judy walking out of the door arm in arm. ‘Look after the invalids, for their sake.’
The doctor smiled. ‘I’ll do that, Micah. Bye.’
Micah opened the door of Harry’s Crossley. ‘Bed for you two and no arguments.’
‘After I’ve spoken to Mary and my mother.’ Edyth closed her hands into fists. ‘Damn Aled James and damn the day he stepped off the boat in Tiger Bay.’
‘Harry, David, and a lot of other people, including Aiden Collins from the other side, would probably damn him with you.’ Micah looked at Judy. But she climbed into the back of the car without saying a word.
A week after his operation, Harry was well enough to sit up in a chair at the side of his bed and read through the papers he had asked his solicitor to send him. Aled found him doing just that when he walked into his private room bearing an enormous basket. He dumped it on Harry’s locker. ‘I brought you some fruit.’
‘So I see. On behalf of the entire ward I thank you, because there is no way that I will be able to eat all that.’
‘You no longer have a police guard outside.’ Aled pulled up a chair and sat beside Harry.
‘The sergeant came in yesterday to tell me that they have picked up the two men who killed Aiden and attacked Freddie, David, and me. Would you believe that they are called John and Tom Smith?’
‘Interesting names, aren’t they? What’s even more interesting and galling is that the hired killers get caught, go to trial, and hopefully a hanging and Charlie Moore and Geoff Arnold who apparently have been working hand in glove and employed them walk free.’ Aled sat back in his chair. ‘But to look on the bright side, the employers will lie low for a while.’
‘You seem very sure of that,’ Harry commented.
‘I am very sure of that. Neither Arnold nor Moore would be walking around if I could prove anything, and they know it. But despite distributing largesse far and wide I haven’t found anyone willing to grass on them. But I took care to let both of them know that I’ve hired a few more men, every one of them a trained soldier. Which brings me to one of the reasons why I have come to see you.’
‘How did you get in?’ Harry looked through the door. There was no sign of the sister or the staff nurses who had no compunction about shooing out his parents, Edyth and Mary if they stayed one minute after the bell had been rung to signal the end of visiting. Or the police when they came with their endless questions about the man who had knifed him – a man who had been clearly identified by Micah, Judy and Edyth on the day of the attack.
Aled rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. ‘The usual way.’
‘You bribed the sister. I don’t believe it,’ Harry said.
‘The sister cannot be bought, but lesser minions can. The dragon is on her lunch break, and half an hour will have to suffice for what I want to say you and David.’
‘Have you seen David?’
‘Not yet. Is he in a private room like you?’
‘The general ward, where I’ll be moved later today. They keep these rooms for the critical patients.’
‘And those rich enough to pay for them,’ Aled said wryly. ‘If I’m going to see David I’d better tell you why I’m here or I’ll run out of time. First I want to thank you for taking the knife that was meant for me.’
‘What are brothers for?’ Harry joked.
‘We might have the same father, Harry, but we’ll never be brothers.’
There was a serious undercurrent to Aled’s voice that Harry didn’t dare contradict. ‘I also wanted to tell you that in return I am going to give you the present you want most of all in the world.’
‘Which is?’ Harry asked warily.
‘I’m giving David and Judy back to you.’
‘Aled …’
Aled left his chair and returned it to the corner of the room. ‘We live in different worlds, you and I, Harry. It’s better that we don’t see one another again. Just one favour in return.’ He looked towards the window so Harry couldn’t see the expression on his face. ‘Be good to Judy. She’s going to need all the kindness and support she can get for the next few months.’
‘Harry is being discharged from here on Saturday and I’ll be leaving next week.’ David handed the fruit basket that Aled had brought him to one of the trainee nurses. ‘I’ve been thinking about the club and the –’
‘I’ve been thinking too, David.’ Aled moved the chair closer to David’s bed and lowered his voice so the men in the neighbouring beds couldn’t hear what he was s
aying. ‘It isn’t that you don’t handle yourself well, you do – for a kid.’ He knew David would take his last comment as an insult, just as he’d intended. ‘But after what happened to Aiden I’ve decided to employ older, more experienced people. No reflection on you, just the time and the place we live in.’ He took an envelope from his inside pocket and handed it to David. ‘Keep that safe and give it to Edyth or your sister when they come in to visit you. It’s six months’ pay. Call it danger money for getting beaten up. The doctors have told me that it won’t take anywhere near that long to get you back on your feet. So you can take a holiday.’
‘Mr James, please …’
Aled left his chair. ‘It’s for the best, David. I need people I can rely on around me and frankly,’ he looked down on him, ‘you’re just too young and inexperienced.’ Aled turned on his heel and left the ward. He dared not look back. He’d ordered a special dinner to be served in his suite at the Windsor Hotel in a couple of hours but he doubted that he or his guest would eat it. He had one more goodbye to say and it was going to be the hardest of all.
Harry and Edyth’s father, Lloyd, wasn’t given to anger or rages, but when he and their mother Sali returned with Harry’s wife Mary to the rooms above Edyth’s shop after visiting Harry and David in the Royal Infirmary on Wednesday evening he was furious. He looked at the supper Edyth had laid out on the table in her upstairs sitting room, walked past it, and sat on the window seat.
‘You have to leave Tiger Bay, Edyth,’ he said sharply. ‘And so does David. The sooner the better.’ He looked around the room. ‘Times are hard and you may not get as much as you paid for this place, but if you want to buy a comparable business in Pontypridd its price will be just as low.’
‘Dad …’
‘Looking at those two boys lying in their hospital beds was no different to looking at the broken bodies of the soldiers who were stupid enough to sign up to fight the politicians’ senseless battles in the Great War. And I saw enough of those when I visited your Uncle Joey when he was convalescing in 1918. Make no mistake about it, Edyth, Harry and David are casualties of war – a stupid crass gang war – and over what? Money.’
Micah, who had been roped in by Edyth to provide moral support in Judy’s absence, dared to speak up. ‘With all due respect, Mr Evans, what happened to David and Harry could have happened anywhere in Wales or the rest of Britain.’
‘You think so?’ Lloyd’s eyes were cold and Edyth silently willed Micah not to continue the argument.
‘David could have taken a job as a bookie’s runner anywhere. They have them in Cardiff, possibly even Pontypridd, and where there’s money to be made, if you’ll pardon the very bad pun, there’ll be turf wars. As for the men who killed Aiden and attacked Harry and David, the police have them in custody. They’ll be tried, sentenced, and punished. So, far from being a lawless place where murderers are free to roam the streets, you have to admit that Tiger Bay is better policed than many other areas.’
‘Like Cheltenham and Mayfair, for instance,’ Lloyd suggested caustically.
‘Aled James didn’t attract any of the wrong kind of attention until he started making money and moving in on other people’s turf, then people saw him as an easy target. They’ve since discovered how wrong they were. And Harry was only attacked because he was mistaken for Aled.’
‘We told you, Dad, the men who attacked Harry called him Aled. They really thought he was Aled James,’ Edyth pleaded.
‘Edyth has worked hard to build a successful business here, sir.’ Micah pressed home the small advantage he felt that he and Edyth had gained for all it was worth.
‘So you’re telling me that unlike Aled James, Edyth hasn’t attracted the wrong kind of attention from the natives of Tiger Bay?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Lloyd looked at him. ‘Not even from you?’
Edyth crossed her fingers behind her back to no avail. ‘I love her with all my heart, sir, and I hope to marry her as soon as she is free. With your permission,’ Micah added tactfully.
Lloyd turned to Edyth. ‘And what do you have to say about this?’
‘That I love Micah too.’
‘I see.’ Lloyd’s grimace turned to a smile. ‘Well, he’s better than the last one you married, I’ll give him that.’
‘Lloyd, what a thing to say!’ Sali reprimanded. ‘Now come to the table and start eating. Mary will want to get back to the children to make sure that our housekeeper has bathed them and put them to bed properly. That’s if she got a look in with all the aunts wanting to take over.’
‘You will come here for lunch on Saturday before you take Harry back to Pontypridd?’ Edyth asked.
‘That depends on how Harry feels,’ Mary answered. ‘It’s a pity that David has to stay in hospital another week.’ She sat next to Edyth at the table and Edyth blanched when she saw the dark circles beneath her sister-in-law’s eyes. ‘The turf war’, as Micah had christened it, and the worry over Harry and David had taken their toll on all of them, but Mary had suffered the most.
‘You heard David tonight,’ Edyth said. ‘He point-blank refuses to leave the Bay. But don’t worry, he’s comfortable living with Micah’s sister and I’ll find him a job here in my baker’s.’
‘A made-up job?’ Lloyd asked.
‘No, Dad.’ Edyth stretched the truth. ‘My delivery boy Jamie is going to sea.’ Edyth knew it was no more than a vague hope on Jamie’s part the way shipping was. ‘In the meantime, Jamie can train David up to replace him, that way the transition will go smoothly.’
‘Where’s Judy tonight? Is she in the club?’ Sali asked.
‘No, Aled closed it for a week out of respect for Aiden, but he intends to reopen it next Tuesday.’ Edyth gave Micah a quick conscious look. ‘She’s gone out for dinner with a friend.’
* * *
‘This is just like old times,’ Judy said when Aled opened the door to her and showed her into the sitting room of his suite.
A table had been laid next to the window, a steaming trolley of hot chafing dishes pulled up alongside it. A waiter was standing in front of a stand holding a bucket of ice. He was uncorking a bottle of wine.
‘As soon as you have finished doing that, you can leave,’ Aled said abruptly. ‘We’ll serve ourselves.’
The waiter opened the wine, placed it in the bucket and retreated to the door. ‘Enjoy your meal, Mr James, Miss King.’
Aled took Judy’s coat and carried it into the bedroom.
She looked around and noticed a few small changes.
There was a selection of framed photographs among the litter of invitations on the mantelpiece. One of Freddie, Aled, and Aiden that had been taken the night the dub opened and another of Aled with a young attractive blonde.
‘Who is that?’ she asked, when Aled returned from the bedroom.
‘Councillor Harvill’s daughter. We’re going to be married.’
‘You’re what?’
‘Married,’ he repeated. ‘The councillor is a strong player in the Chamber of Commerce as well a member of various influential committees. Businesswise he can do me a lot of good.’
Judy’s legs buckled from under her and she sank down on the sofa.
‘Are you all right?’ He poured her a glass of wine and handed it to her. It slipped through her fingers and spilled on the carpet. ‘Leave it,’ he ordered when she stooped to mop it up. ‘Housekeeping will see to it.’
‘Sorry,’ she snapped. ‘My maid’s training is showing through. When will you marry …’ Judy pointed at the photograph.
‘Councillor Harvill’s daughter? Her name is Moira, by the way. Probably next spring. Her mother seems to think it’s the best time for a society wedding.’
Judy’s green eyes blazed as she looked at him. ‘I thought … I thought …’ She fell silent when she recalled her conversation with Edyth. She had admitted that Aled wasn’t the type of man to be faithful to any one woman. He had never promised her anything … so what right did sh
e have to be angry with him because he was marrying someone else?
‘You didn’t think that you and I were going to have anything other than a good time together, did you, Judy?’ Aled chided. ‘Given your grandfather’s blood, you know I could never take you to a Chamber of Commerce or Council function. I need a wife who can help me get on and up in the world.’
‘I know what people think of my grandfather’s blood,’ she said acidly. ‘Thanks to your insistence on taking me to a department store in the middle of Cardiff, I know only too well what white people outside Butetown think of coloured people. I believe they place us slightly higher than dogs, but considerably lower than human. What I didn’t know was that you thought it was fine for us to be employed by you and, like Aiden, even die for you. To use us as bed mates to make love to, but never to be seen with in polite circles.’
‘Judy, it’s the way of the world; I live in it as best I can. We had fun. But it was never going to last, we both knew that …’ He tried to touch her and she moved away from him. ‘I take it there’ll be no romp in the bedroom tonight. I’d better telephone Anna Hughes and ask her to send up Gertie’s replacement. I hear she’s quite a pretty little redhead.’
‘You bastard.’ Judy brought her hand back and slapped him with full force across the face.
‘If you feel like that about me, Judy, forget your contract and working in the club. I won’t hold you to it. I’ll send the clothes I bought you to Edyth’s shop.’
‘Keep your bloody clothes.’ Forgetting her coat, Judy wrenched open the door and fled so Aled wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes. It was just as well she didn’t look back at him or she would have seen the tears in his.
Tiger Ragtime Page 39