She blinked again, this time very rapidly. ‘You couldn’t survive without me.’
He folded his arms as if trying to hold back the rising tide of fury. ‘I think you’ll find the shoe’s on a different foot altogether.’ He left her with her jaw hanging, slamming the door in his wake.
On the stairs, he sat down, his whole body trembling, head pounding as the blood coursed too quickly through his brain. It would be a stroke, he supposed – or a heart attack. It would amuse her no end if she outlived him. Would she make him buy her out? The business wasn’t worth a great deal – it was more scones and goodwill than anything. What would a prospective purchaser see? A shop with below-average turnover, a place that kept two people in reasonable comfort, no more. Savings? He had less than five grand, no big deal at all.
So the shop would change into something else, and that something else would come with the sitting tenant from hell. Dave stood up and crossed his fingers. He prayed that Mam and Mary Turnbull would get on, that he would get out, that the Reading Room would endure. It was time for him to start having some of his own way.
Solitary again, but not rule 43. Wasn’t me. I know the bloke who made the knife, but I daren’t say a frigging word, or it’ll be me with my eye out next time.
Five of us in solitary. It’s no big deal, because I like being on my own; few interruptions, time to think and concentrate on what needs doing. Not easy to make stuff happen when you’re locked up, but I’m owed a few favours, could get more than a handful of folk sent down if I wanted to.
Food’s crap. Sit and think. All the time in the world to work it out. Yes. All the time in the world.
Three
Lily had failed to remember one vital thing about her friend, but she was reminded early on of a particular characteristic that was very much a part of Babs. She talked. She talked on any subject for any length of time, was able to discuss matters about which she had little or no knowledge, and entered conversations even if she needed to interrupt.
She hadn’t always been like this. The anxiety had only surfaced after the two women had met, and was probably the result of certain events about which Babs seldom spoke, a series of traumas that had left both of them bruised in more ways than one. Lily had become quiet and withdrawn, while Babs now employed compulsive talking in an effort to distract herself to the point where she might forget some of it. For her, it was therapy, and, if it worked for Babs, Lily would endure it.
In spite of her questions about the population of Eagleton, Babs floated through her early days in the village like a duck on an extremely placid pond. Some feathers might have been ruffled by her head-on approach, but Babs’s own plumage remained smooth. It was almost frightening. Like Lily, she had a west country accent; unlike Lily, she was not good at remembering the alibi on which both had supposedly worked, so she often gave Somerset as her place of origin. No one had commented so far, but it might make matters more difficult in the future.
Lily came downstairs, stopped and listened. Babs was talking to a customer. ‘No, she hasn’t always been quiet. She’s been through a lot of—’
‘Hello.’ Lily bustled in and made herself busy with a bucket of pinks. The customer was Father Walsh, and he was in receipt of the dubious benefit of Babs’s wisdom. ‘Get Cassie out of the roses, Babs,’ Lily begged. ‘It’s not just a matter of saving the flowers – she could prick herself on a thorn.’
Babs picked up her daughter. ‘Right. I’ll take you upstairs.’ The reluctance in her tone was clear.
Lily eyed the priest when Babs had gone. ‘Yes?’ she asked.
‘I’m begging,’ he replied. She looked frightened. ‘If you have anything left over on a Saturday – anything that won’t last till Monday – could we have it for a special rate for Sunday Masses and Benediction?’
Philomena Gallagher had already made the same request, so Lily repeated her consent. ‘Either free or very cheap,’ she added.
‘Paying your rent again just in case?’
She smiled, but her eyes remained cold. ‘How’s the rabbit?’
‘Pale mauve,’ he said. ‘And he still lets me feed him.’
Lily picked up a rose from the floor. ‘You’ve met Babs, then.’ Cassie had broken the stem.
He nodded. Babs was quite a character. She was pleasant, inquisitive, nervous and damaged. But she was not as traumatized as Lily appeared to be. ‘Yes, it was a pleasure to talk to her at last. She’s very amusing.’
‘Good.’ She straightened a pile of wrapping sheets on the counter. ‘Anything else? Do you need a kidney, blood transfusion, flowers? No? All right, I have to see to something upstairs.’ She left him in the shop.
In the living room, she collared her friend. ‘Babs, I wish—’
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You know what I’m like. I can’t help it.’ She shook russet-coloured hair and smiled an apology. ‘I like people. In spite of everything that’s happened, I still like the beggars. It’s how I am, Lee. It’s how I’ve had to become, because . . . you know why.’
Lily sighed heavily. ‘We are incognito – well, I am – for a very good reason. And you could ruin it all by letting your tongue wander off on its own without a collar and lead. Babs, I could be in danger.’
‘I know.’
‘My life and yours could depend on how well we manage up here.’
‘I know.’
‘Then there’s Cassie. I won’t draw any nasty pictures, but you know damned well what we could be up against in time. There could be a lot of red in those pictures—’
‘I know! I do know!’ Babs sat down and burst into tears. ‘I shouldn’t have come. I should have stayed at home, because I might just say too much and give you away. I’ll go back.’ She dried her face and lifted a determined chin. ‘I’ll go back and leave you in peace with a better chance of survival.’
‘You can’t. You need to be out of the way as well. So does that child. I’m afraid you’re stuck here, my lovely. And when I move across the road, you’ll be in this flat with just Cassie. If I can’t trust you, I can’t move out. And I want to live in that house. Now, dry your eyes again and take this little girl for some fresh air.’
The smaller woman sighed, and there was a slight sob in the breath that escaped her lungs. ‘All right,’ she said eventually.
‘Babs, I don’t like upsetting you, because God knows you’ve had enough misery, but I can’t have you running away at the mouth.’
‘Collar and lead?’
Lily nodded. ‘Straitjacket, if necessary. Now, pull yourself together. That was the shop bell, and I’ve flowers to sell.’
Back in the shop, she found a tall, attractive man in a short-sleeved shirt that just about contained his muscular body. ‘Yes?’ she said.
He had come to see Babs. Lily paused and processed his request. Who did Babs know up here? Was he a villager – or perhaps it was someone from one of the estates? Or could it be . . . God, no. Not yet, surely? ‘She’s busy,’ Lily managed eventually. ‘Taking her little girl out.’ If anyone did come after them, it wouldn’t be in daylight or without disguise.
‘Are you Lily?’
Fear cut through her like a knife, and she understood all about knives. ‘Who wants to know?’ Blood pounded in her ears. England was a relatively small country, and news travelled fast. Was this the new face of an old danger? Had she and Babs been cornered already?
‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I’m Peter Haywood. Sergeant. Greater Manchester Police.’
She relaxed slightly, felt the stiffness leaving her shoulders. It might be an idea to book an Indian head massage on her next visit to Pour Les Dames. ‘Ah yes. I’ll . . . I’ll go and get her.’ The police were not always trustworthy, yet she had been forced to advise them of her arrival, since friends back home might well be getting her listed as missing. Was he a good cop or a bad cop?
She came back into the shop with Babs and Cassie following in her wake. ‘Hello,’ Babs said rather loudly. ‘To what do we
owe the pleasure?’
He passed her a scarf. ‘You left this at the station.’
Lily glanced up at the ceiling. She was in the presence of strong chemistry and didn’t know where to look. The scarf was silk and had been a gift from her to Babs when they had still lived in Taunton. Babs and the scarf were close companions – virtually inseparable. It had been forgotten on purpose; this visit had been engineered by a clever little woman who had taken a fancy to a tall, handsome stranger at least ten years her senior.
‘Shall we go for a walk?’ Babs asked the policeman. They left, Cassie toddling between them, Babs winking at Lily. The remarkable fact was that Babs was still on the market. In spite all that had happened, she was organizing a manhunt.
Lily watched them while they sat on a bench at the edge of the green, her mind racing. She wondered whether Babs might change her name via marriage to a man who would protect her and Cassie, but the idea did not sit comfortably in Lily’s soul. Cassie was all she had. Babs was the little girl’s mother, and Lily had been fighting her feelings for some time, yet the thought of parting with this near-daughter made her ill. Only one good thing had escaped Taunton, and that good thing was playing near the stocks. ‘I must distance myself,’ she whispered.
There was a wedding to prepare. Philomena Gallagher had promised to sit with Cassie while Lily and Babs took flowers and drapery into Bolton in order to prepare for tomorrow. They had a church and a reception hall to cover, so it promised to be a long evening. Lily folded lengths of satin that would be fashioned in swags suggested by the bride. Given free rein, Lily might have done things differently, but tomorrow belonged to the bride. The bouquet had to be taken away straight after the service, as it was to be professionally dried and framed.
Babs and Cassie were still with the policeman. He would know the whole story, since it had all been broadcast in newspapers and on TV, so he was learning nothing new. Yet Lily’s skin crawled each time she thought about people hereabouts learning exactly who she was, who Babs and Cassie were. The sergeant might keep his counsel, might not. Like the purple-eared rabbit, Lily did not want to feel trapped.
She needed more ice. As she came through from the back of the shop, she looked outside again. They were still sitting on the same bench while Cassie played ball with another child. Lily smiled. Cassie couldn’t catch yet, couldn’t even throw properly. How fortunate the child was. Too young to worry, she simply went from day to day without a care in the world. And that was a blessing indeed.
‘She’s going to buy the priest’s house, and good luck to her. Looks as if she’s due a change of fortune. Put these on the shelf.’ Eve passed a box of cigars to her husband. ‘But I still want to get out of here, Chas. We had our own house in Liverpool, so why can’t we have one here? I can’t fit a proper Christmas tree upstairs. Last year’s looked like an accident that had fallen off the bin wagon. I wouldn’t care if we couldn’t afford— Take that stupid look off your face and shut your gob – there’s a bus coming.’
Chas sighed loudly. ‘I like to keep an eye on things,’ he said lamely. She’d win. She always won in the end. He was the one who was supposed to be in charge, because he could make her laugh until she changed her mind, but Eve was the home-maker, and she wasn’t satisfied with the raw materials on Fullers Walk.
‘Then go straight,’ she suggested. ‘Sell just kosher gear, and tell your special customers to bog off.’
He shook his head. Go straight? He was nearly that already. It was just a few cases here and there, bits and bobs obtained by his brother from a source on the docks. Security was now so paranoid that no one could go out-and-out criminal these days. ‘I’m as straight as I can be,’ he said.
‘But your Robbo or one of the lads could bring stuff to our house, then we could fetch it here in the boot of our car or something.’
Or something. The trouble with women was that they didn’t think things through properly. ‘The less you know, the better. My eggs here are all in one basket – they need to be.’
Eve’s shift was ending. Without another word to her beloved spouse, she walked out of the shop, slamming the door behind her. Chas hated sulking. If she could keep it up for a few days without succumbing to laughter, if she could stick to her decision, she might be in with a chance.
Eve stood at the front window of the flat. The woman who was staying with Lily Latimer was sitting on a bench near the green. She was in the company of an eye-pleasing piece of male furniture, and she was laughing. Babs, she was called. From the same neck of the woods as the florist, she was certainly a great deal livelier than her hostess. The child was pretty, with large eyes and a mass of blonde hair. There seemed to be no husband in the picture, but that was only too common these days.
Both adults were laughing. Lily didn’t laugh very often, though. She was beautiful, yet there was something missing in her face, as if pieces of life had been taken out of her. But she’d bucked up in the priest’s place, so that was definitely going to be her property. It would be interesting to see if she would come out of her shell after moving from the Walk.
Eve sat down and took from behind a cushion a pile of leaflets sent by estate agents. There were many houses for sale in the area, some old, many new. The old ones were prettier, while the new were more sensible, easier to keep and still under guarantee. There was a lot to be said for a guarantee, but Rose Cottage still sat on top of the pile, because that was where it belonged. Detached and built of thick blocks of stone, it looked as if it had been here for ever – it would probably survive Armageddon.
‘I’ll have to get inside that one,’ Eve told the empty room. ‘And there’s enough outbuildings for all Chas’s palaver.’ It looked as if talking him round wasn’t going to be easy. But Derek was away on a course, so Eve could play a trump card by sleeping in her son’s room. Chas didn’t like sleeping alone. Well, if he wanted company, he could always get a bloody cat.
The intercom buzzer sounded, so she picked up the phone. ‘Hello?’ It had to be Chas – there was no one else around to use the intercom facility.
‘You win,’ he said.
She wouldn’t crow, wouldn’t laugh, wouldn’t scream with joy. ‘You’re no fun,’ she told him. ‘I was going to curl up with Daphne du Maurier in our Derek’s room.’
‘Is she a dyke?’
‘No, she’s a writer, soft lad. How much? Because it has to be Rose Cottage. It’s just across the road and I like it. You’ll like it. Because if you don’t like it, I’ll kill you.’
‘What’s the price, Evie?’
‘Never mind the price. We’re viewing it tomorrow when Derek gets home. And be nice when we get there. We can talk about the price when you’ve seen it and decided you’d give anything to live there.’
After a pause, he asked, ‘How do you know I’d give anything to live there?’
‘Because I say so.’ She put down the phone and tried not to cheer. Men were easy, she reminded herself. They liked what they were told to like and they’d do almost anything for a quiet life.
The intercom sounded again. ‘What?’ she pretended to snap.
‘Can we have beef and Yorkshires tomorrow?’
‘All right.’
‘With rhubarb crumble to follow?’
‘Yes.’
‘Custard?’
‘Don’t push it, Charles Boswell. I do have my limits, you know.’ She replaced the receiver. Rose Cottage. It was next to St Faith’s, while the presbytery sat on the church’s other side. Chas would be able to see his beloved shop from the front window. Derek would probably stay here, since it was time he had a pad of his own.
There was a very long rear garden, as long as the one behind the priest’s house. The church would be sandwiched between Lily Latimer and the Boswells, as would the graveyard, the size of which was probably the reason for those two long plots behind presbytery and cottage. Eve rubbed her hands in glee. She had always fancied some land. There wasn’t even a window box here, but she would mak
e up for that soon enough.
With a cardigan draped across her shoulders, she went downstairs and out through the rear door. There was joy in her step as she crossed the road and looked at the facade of the house she coveted. There were roses everywhere. A very primitive example clung to the masonry outside the front door. Its flowers seemed to have just one layer of petals – was it a dog rose? She would order a book from Dave’s shop. In fact, she would order several, because she wanted to grow her own herbs and vegetables as well as flowers.
There would be amateur rose specialists all over the villages. Would she dare keep chickens? Not to eat, of course, because a chicken in the oven needed to be anonymous. But there could be fresh eggs almost every day.
The windows were lovely, sashed and set in sandstone. The rest of the house was in a greyer colour, but it was beyond beautiful – it was absolutely gorgeous. The roof was slate, and probably needed attention. A little water feature sat in the front garden, just stones over which the liquid trickled. Slabs at the edge wore patches of moss, and Eve was glad that no one had cleaned them off. It was an idyll, with a huge plot at the back and civilization at the front in the form of shops and a properly laid main road.
They were still sitting there. The woman named Babs was leaning towards the man. If what Eve had read about body language was correct, she was practically giving herself to him, and who could blame her? He was such a big, handsome fellow, while Babs was a likeable soul. Ah, well. Good luck to the pair of them.
Father Walsh came past. ‘Hello, Eve. What are you up to now?’
‘I’m up to trying to force Chas into buying this house. I think I may be winning.’
‘Oh?’
She nodded. ‘He isn’t ready to die yet, Father. And I don’t want to be confessing to you that I murdered him.’
The Reading Room Page 6