Megan of Merseyside

by Rosie Harris

‘I’m not sure!’ Tears rolled unchecked down her cheeks. ‘Can you find out? I need to know.’ She scrubbed a hand across her eyes, squaring her shoulders in an attempt to pull herself together. ‘Why were you trying to find me?’ she asked in a puzzled voice.

  Robert hesitated, reluctant to deliver what he knew was going to be another blow when she was already so upset. He looked down into her tearstained face, searching for the right words in order to break the news as gently as possible.

  His expression made her uneasy. He stood there, a solid rock of a man with an unfathomable look in his light blue eyes.

  ‘It’s about Lynn. She was involved in a road accident,’ he said in a low voice. He placed a protective arm across Megan’s shoulders. ‘Your parents are with her. They asked me to come and fetch you.’

  Wide eyed, Megan stared at Robert in silent disbelief. She found it difficult to take in what he was saying. She felt as if she was caught up in a nightmare. It was as if the horror of Miles’ accident was happening all over again only this time it was Lynn who had been hurt. It didn’t make sense.

  She closed her eyes trying to shut out the picture that was taking over in her mind. She couldn’t bear to think of Lynn lying in a hospital bed, attached to all the paraphernalia of drips and tubes, like Miles had been.

  Lynn was always so active, so vibrant. Lynn couldn’t sit still for ten minutes. She had to be doing something, even if it was only tapping her foot or drumming with her fingers to the music inside her head. Lynn so gregarious, fun loving and daring, and who always had to be the centre of attention. Although they often argued, she loved her sister.

  ‘I must see her!’ Sobbing, Megan pulled away from Robert and turned back towards the hospital.

  Robert strode after her, grabbing her arm and pulling her to a stop. He spun her round until she was facing him, pinning her arms to her side as she tried to fight him away.

  ‘Calm down, Megan. It’s no good going in there in that state, they wouldn’t let you near Lynn in case you upset her. Take a deep breath, get a hold on yourself.’

  His heart ached for her as she stared up into his face, her eyes filled with tears. She looks like a terrified child, he thought tenderly. His arms tightened around her and the shudder that ran through her had the impact of an electric shock to his own body. He held her closer, murmuring soothing words to calm her, stroking her hair until her sobs subsided.

  Gradually she relaxed against him, her head resting on his chest.

  ‘Robert, we’re wasting time. I must go to Lynn.’ She pulled away wearily, as if her limbs were leaden.

  They walked in silence, side by side, back into the hospital. Robert led her past the reception desk, taking her straight to one of the side wards.

  As they reached the doorway, Megan paused. The shaking was back, turning her legs to water. The colour drained from her face and Robert thought she was going to faint. Then with a tremendous effort she steadied herself, took a deep breath and, with her hands clenched into tight fists at her side, walked into the room.

  The nightmare feeling of déjà-vu became even more vivid as she approached the bed.

  Lynn’s fair hair was a tangled mass against the pillows. Her eyes were closed, her lips a pale gash in her bloodless face. Her breathing was shallow and laboured.

  Watkin Williams moved a few paces away from the bed as Megan approached it. He placed a restraining hand on her arm as she bent over and whispered Lynn’s name.

  ‘She’s been unconscious ever since they brought her in … She won’t know you are here,’ he murmured.

  ‘I think she does,’ protested Megan. ‘Her eyelids moved when I took her hand and said her name.’

  ‘She shouldn’t be disturbed. Perhaps if you came back later …’

  ‘I want to stay,’ Megan begged.

  ‘I think not.’ Gently, Robert led her away from the bedside.

  ‘Come back later, cariad,’ pleaded Watkin, laying a hand gently on her arm. ‘Your mother and me will sit with her.’

  Kathy said nothing. Her face was puffy from crying. She sat staring at Lynn as if waiting for a miracle.

  As she walked out of the hospital for the second time within an hour, Megan suddenly remembered that she ought to get back to the office. She needed to try to contact Mr Walker and make sure he knew about Miles.

  ‘Robert, do you know how Lynn was injured?’ she asked, suddenly struck by the coincidence of the two accidents taking place almost simultaneously.

  ‘Lynn was thrown from the back of a motorbike,’ he told her tersely. ‘It seems the bike skidded on the wet road. That’s all I know. Oh, and that it was somewhere near Whitechapel.’

  ‘Isn’t it odd that she was in an accident at almost the same time as Miles. Do you think it could have been the same accident?’ She frowned.

  Robert didn’t answer, but his mouth tightened and a nerve at the side of his jaw twitched. He hoped she wouldn’t ask any more questions. He didn’t want to be the one to tell her the truth. Although in a way it was none of his business, in his heart he knew he should have spoken out a long time ago.

  ‘Who was on the motorbike with Lynn?’

  He forced himself to meet her puzzled gaze. It was the question he had dreaded. Now she had voiced it he knew he could no longer avoid the issue, yet the last thing he wanted to do was upset her even more.

  His feelings for Megan went deep but he knew she didn’t feel the same way. Although she was always sweet and friendly, she treated him as if he was an elder brother, nothing more, Robert thought sadly.

  ‘You do know, don’t you, Robert?’ she persisted. ‘Was this boy Flash that Lynn is always talking about involved?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘She was with Flash.’ He took a deep breath. ‘You … you’ve never met him, have you?’

  ‘No!’ She shook her head, a faint smile lifting the corners of her mouth. ‘I was supposed to be meeting him on my birthday, the night the Stork Club was raided by the police and you arrived in the nick of time and got us both out.’

  ‘I remember!’

  ‘Several times after that, Lynn tried to fix up a meeting but something always went wrong, and he never turned up.’

  ‘You do realise that Flash isn’t his real name?’ His anxious gaze searched her face.

  ‘Lynn always called him that.’ Megan frowned.

  ‘But you must have known it was just a nickname,’ Robert persisted.

  ‘Of course, but I don’t think she knew his real name.’

  ‘She didn’t?’

  ‘Robert, what’s all the mystery?’

  ‘It seems that neither of you knew that Flash and Miles Walker were one and the same person?’

  Robert silently cursed himself for his tactlessness as the colour drained from Megan’s face. Her eyes became saucer-wide pools of pain as she stared at him in disbelief.

  ‘It can’t be true!’ She shook her head as if refusing to accept Robert’s statement.

  ‘Lynn said that Flash always wore flannels and a tweed jacket. Miles dresses in a smart suit with a collar and tie,’ she said in a strangled voice, desperate to prove Robert wrong.

  Even as she spoke she recalled that Miles wasn’t always dressed like that. Often when they met late in the evening he wore a tweed jacket and flannels. She tried to quell the horror rising inside her: that’s what Miles had been wearing when he’d called in the office … just before the accident.

  ‘I think I can explain what has been happening,’ Robert told her. ‘Miles kept a motorbike down at the warehouse. He also had a change of casual clothes there. Whenever he intended going to the Stork Club he would change from his office suit into them.’

  ‘You’ve known all along … so why didn’t you tell me?’ she gasped accusingly. ‘Does Mr Walker know about this?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. I only found out about the clothes and motorbike by chance. I promised Miles I would say nothing. At the time it didn’t seem to matter.’

  ‘Y
ou’re making this up,’ she accused, two spots of colour staining her cheeks. ‘You’ve got it in for Miles. Once before you told me that I was wasting my time with him.’

  ‘I knew Miles was a two-timer and I didn’t want to see you getting hurt,’ he told her sharply.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me the whole story, then?’

  ‘I couldn’t! Not without betraying Miles’ confidence.’

  ‘Yet you’re doing that now,’ she said scornfully.

  ‘This is an emergency,’ he reasoned quietly.

  He braced himself to look at her. A peculiar stiffness seemed to freeze her features and the pain in her voice distressed him. Her face was drawn and white, her eyes staring at him reproachfully.

  ‘If I had told you all this before the accident would you have believed me?’ he asked gently.

  ‘No, probably not. I’m not sure I do even now, but at least I could have checked it out with Lynn,’ she said dully. ‘Please don’t say anything about it to my parents,’ she warned him.

  ‘I hate to see you hurt like this, Megan, but I can’t make a promise like that. It’s bound to come out! You must realise that.’

  ‘I don’t see why it should.’ She bit down on her lower lip. ‘I doubt if Miles will say anything and … and I certainly won’t,’ she added firmly.

  ‘There’s been a serious accident, Megan, the police will be involved. They’ll dig until they’ve got all the facts. You can’t hide something like that from experienced detectives.’

  ‘I must get back to the office and make sure Mr Walker’s been informed about the accident,’ she said abruptly.

  ‘Shall I come with you?’

  ‘No! I would prefer to be on my own.’ She struggled to keep her feelings of frustration and despair in check, knowing that once she gave way to tears she wouldn’t be able to stop crying. She longed to prove Robert wrong, but deep down inside she knew instinctively that he was right and that she had lost the battle even before it had begun.

  How could Miles have played such a trick on them both? It was a question she would be asking herself for ever. How could she and Lynn have both been so besotted by the same person? It didn’t make sense.

  Her mind became a jumble of inconsequential thoughts. She began comparing what Lynn had told her about Flash with things she knew about Miles. So many of them linked like interlocking pieces of a complex jigsaw. The blue eyes, the darkly handsome looks, mannerisms, even fragments of conversation that Lynn had reported to her began to be identifiable with Miles.

  She tried to tell herself that she was only thinking this way because Robert had sowed the seed of suspicion in her mind. Yet the similarities between Flash and Miles continued to pyramid until it became agonisingly clear that Robert was probably right and that they were one and the same person.

  ‘Where are you parked? Let me walk that far with you at least,’ Robert said, bringing her back to the present.

  ‘I came by taxi.’

  ‘Then I may as well give you a lift,’ he insisted.

  ‘You needn’t trouble.’

  ‘Come on. I have to go past the office on my way to the docks.’

  They drove in silence. When Robert drew up in Old Hall Street she got out of his car without a word. She stopped with a feeling of panic when she saw he was following her.

  ‘I need to have a word with Mr Newbold,’ Robert said abruptly.

  ‘Surely it can wait. He’s probably left the office by now.’

  ‘Then I’ll leave a note on his desk,’ he insisted stubbornly. ‘Mr Newbold will have to arrange for some extra help so that your father can have some time off work.’

  ‘You will be careful what you tell people,’ she said uneasily as they walked into the office. ‘People don’t know about Miles and me … no one does.’

  As the tears that she’d held in check began to roll down her cheeks, Robert gave her his handkerchief. He felt unable to console her in case he said something that made matters worse so he waited in silence until her sobs subsided.

  ‘I’ll be all right now.’ She scrubbed at her eyes. ‘I’ve made an awful mess of your hanky,’ she murmured with a ghost of a smile. ‘You’d better let me wash it.’

  He nodded without speaking. He would have treasured it as it was, soaked by her tears. He wished he’d not been the one to disclose the silly jape Miles had perpetrated. Lynn would probably have laughed it off, but with Megan such things went so much deeper.

  Chapter Twenty

  APRIL SLID INTO May, then became June and still Lynn remained unconscious. The strain on all of them was tremendous. Kathy lost weight and looked drawn and tired. What had once been a series of double chins had now become slack jowls. A dejected, shapeless figure, she lost all interest in her appearance and would go days without having a wash or even combing her hair.

  It made Megan sad to see her mother setting off for the hospital wearing an old cardigan over a washed-out cotton dress simply because she couldn’t take the trouble to get changed.

  ‘What does it matter, Lynn can’t see me,’ she would exclaim bitterly when Megan pleaded with her to smarten up, or at least run a comb through her hair and use some make-up before she went out of the house.

  ‘You wouldn’t want Lynn to see you like that if she did wake up while you were sitting there, now, would you?’ Megan chivvied her.

  Watkin, too, looked haggard. Not only was he concerned about Lynn’s recovery, but he had been deeply shocked by the revelation that she had been riding pillion on the back of Miles Walker’s motorbike when the accident happened.

  When Martin Walker had demanded to know about the relationship between Miles and Lynn, Watkin had been flummoxed.

  ‘She’s never mentioned your son’s name. Lynn never kept anything secret, she was a proper little chatterbox,’ he added, shaking his head in bewilderment.

  ‘Did she ever talk about anyone called Flash?’

  ‘Oh, yes! She was always going on about Flash.’ He frowned, running his splayed fingers through his hair. ‘What has that got to do with it?’

  ‘Apparently, she knew my son as Flash,’ snapped Martin Walker.

  ‘Miles was Flash!’

  The incredulity in Watkin Williams’ voice seemed to irritate the other man. Frowning, he leaned back in his chair, fiddling with the gold watch chain that spanned his paunch, staring hard at Watkin.

  ‘Maybe she preferred to call him that because she knew who he really was and she was afraid to tell you,’ accused Mr Walker.

  Watkin looked bemused. ‘I don’t follow.’ He frowned.

  The two men’s gaze locked. Martin Walker was the first to look away.

  ‘If your daughter realised that he was your employer’s son then she would know she was overstepping the mark,’ he said tetchily.

  ‘That wouldn’t have worried our Lynn,’ Watkin said quietly. ‘She was ready to be friends with everyone.’

  ‘It mightn’t worry her, but it certainly doesn’t meet with my approval,’ Mr Walker exploded. ‘I object most strongly to my son fraternising with the daughter of one of my lorry drivers,’ he added caustically.

  ‘I see!’ Watkin’s face hardened at Mr Walker’s words. Anger blazed in his dark eyes but only the clenching and unclenching of his fists revealed the tension he was under.

  ‘Don’t worry any more about it, Williams,’ Mr Walker said magnanimously. ‘I’ll have a word with Miles when he comes out of hospital. It’s about time he stopped patronising the Stork Club. It’s just a phase left over from his art college days. I never did approve of the friends he made while he was there; always persuading him to skive off lectures. You should warn your daughter to stay clear of the place. For boys like Miles, picking up young girls is all part of growing up.’

  ‘You may tell your son whatever you wish,’ Watkin growled, struggling to hold his temper in check. ‘There will be no need for me to tell my daughter anything …’

  ‘Well, please yourself. I’m just giving you a friendly
warning,’ interrupted Martin Walker. ‘I’ve always told Miles that if he gets a girl in trouble I don’t want to know about it. And he shouldn’t feel guilty about it, either. It’s as much her fault as his and it’s her responsibility to look after herself, not his …’

  He stopped, startled and apprehensive as Watkin stood up and, placing both hands on the desk, leaned forward until their faces were only inches apart.

  ‘My daughter still hasn’t regained consciousness!’ muttered Watkin, his voice bitter. ‘Perhaps you should tell your son that!’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about, Williams?’

  ‘My Lynn’s been unconscious ever since the accident.’

  ‘Good God! I had no idea she was that seriously hurt! Why didn’t you say so when you first came into my office,’ blustered Martin Walker. ‘Good heavens, this is terrible.’ He pulled out a large white handkerchief and began mopping his brow.

  ‘The doctors don’t hold out much hope,’ Watkin went on, ‘and they warned me that even if she does regain consciousness she will probably be brain damaged.’ He turned away, shoulders bowed, and walked towards the door.

  ‘Look, Williams … if there is anything I can do … If you need more time off …’ Mr Walker’s voice trailed away uncertainly.

  Watkin and Kathy were both at her bedside when the end came. Although he felt a sense of relief, Watkin was beside himself with grief.

  Kathy accepted the news with the same numb blankness that she had shown all through the vigil. It was almost as if her mind refused to take in what had happened.

  Watkin signed all the relevant papers, but it was Megan who read them through and Megan, helped by Robert Field, who organised the simple funeral.

  It was a glorious morning in late June when, sombre-faced, they sat in the black limousine that followed the hearse from Belgrave Street, along Manor Road to Rake Lane Cemetry. If only they’d stayed in Beddgelert, Megan thought wistfully, this tragedy might never have happened.

  It was hard to believe that Lynn was gone for ever. She could never remember a time when Lynn had not been part of her life. All their petty quarrels were forgotten. She could only remember Lynn’s vivaciousness and her wide, cheeky smile.