Midnight on Lime Street

by Ruth Hamilton

  ‘Yes, we do, mostly because we were so messed up as kids that we didn’t do well at school.’ She paused. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘We’re all nearly fifteen.’

  ‘Then you’ll soon be old enough to stand on your own two feet. They keep talking about raising the school leaving age to sixteen, but the powers are good at talking and useless at doing.’ Babs reached out and took Ian’s hand. ‘We’ll work this out. I’m not sure how, but we will.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he managed. ‘Erm – what will you be doing in Southport?’

  ‘I’ll be learning to ride a horse that’s going to win the Grand National.’

  ‘You’re kidding,’ Phil cried.

  ‘Am I? Well, remember his name – it’s Mad Murdoch. He’s stubborn, daft, naughty and beautiful. And when he jumps, he flies.’

  ‘P-Pegasus,’ John stammered. ‘Winged horse. It was in a b-book.’

  ‘He used to read a lot,’ Ian explained. ‘Spoken words were kicked out of him and he got the stammer, so he liked his words printed. He’s clever.’

  Sally spoke to the other two boys. ‘Babs makes things happen. She’ll find a way of helping you – you’ll see.’

  The girls walked back to the farmhouse, forcing their way through bushes. ‘This is one fucked-up world,’ Babs mused in a whisper. ‘Them lads have been through hell just like we have. We are getting out of this game sharpish, babe.’

  ‘How?’ Sally asked.

  ‘Any bloody way will do. We go and live with that sad, randy old bugger and we take it from there. Just watch me and do as I say. There’s always a way, Sally; it’s just a matter of biding our time. The horse is the key.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Babs shrugged. ‘I don’t know how I know. I just know.’

  Laughing without quite understanding why, they entered the place they would soon be leaving. As they lay together that night, each held in her mind a picture of three frightened boys in a smelly shed. ‘We must find some games for them,’ Sally whispered. ‘There’s a compendium in the kitchen. It won’t be missed.’

  Babs deposited a chaste kiss on her girl’s cheek. ‘I love you, Sal. You care in spite of all that’s happened to you.’

  ‘Or because of it. You’re the same. We’ll be OK, won’t we?’

  ‘Of course we will.’ Oh God, she hoped so. ‘Get some sleep, Sally. We’re going to need all the rest we can get, cos there’s big changes coming.’

  ‘Goodnight, Babs.’

  ‘Goodnight, love.’

  I got the first one right except for the cross and chain. The paper said Jean Davenport had children. Well, they may have a chance of a decent upbringing without her in their lives. The second was a disaster; I must learn not to judge a book by its cover, and I think I know how. If I smile or speak, real ones will ask whether I want business. But I wish I could stop thinking and dreaming about Dolly Pearson and her mother, God help the old girl on her deathbed.

  Anyway, I overheard a conversation at work. There’s a place called Meadowbank Farm that doesn’t get mail delivered – it’s picked up twice a week by a mountainous woman in a large van. She has a post office box, because the farm is a whorehouse, or so some people think. It’s accessible from the East Lancashire Road. I suppose the women think they’re safe there, off the beaten track and at least a couple of miles away from their nearest neighbours.

  That conversation I listened to should never have happened, because members of the public ought to have their privacy respected, which is why we have post office boxes, but Jesus made sure I heard it. And here I am with aching legs, wheeling my bike with its lights turned off as I stumble along a dirt track that shows signs of use by a heavy vehicle, probably the van that was mentioned. There’s a sign on one of the open gates, and it bears the name of the farm.

  I’m pondering the subject of beehives. Why? Because one normal female bee is over-nourished, cared for by drones and fed whatever is collected by worker bees. This super-sized grub becomes the queen; the fat woman who drives the van is probably monarch of the farm. This particular home for bees is Sodom and Gomorrah, with Lime Street and the Dock Road included in the mix. Worker bees will have their own cells where they serve customers, while drones will keep the hive in good order and feed Fat Mamma.

  The van’s coming – its engine is noisy. I throw down my bike and dive into a bush. The vehicle passes me, and I’m sure I haven’t been noticed. It stops outside the house, and its back doors open to spill out half a dozen men. Fat Mamma keeps her girls off the streets, then. She picks up their sex partners and brings them here – well, there’s a novelty. Oh, this is a good place for me. With paraffin and a box of matches, I could wipe out all of them, clients as well as those who serve them.

  I booked a few days off work, and Laura thinks I’m sea-fishing, but oh no, I’m here watching and waiting. I hide my bike in the bushes, sit and remain as still as possible. The front door closes. There’s no hurry, because I’m supposed to be out on a boat over the bar, trying to catch fish in the Irish Sea. Laura will go to bed soon – she’s a creature of habit, as am I. We scarcely talk these days. I’m a different person, I suppose, because I am under hallowed orders.

  After about an hour, I’m getting cramp, but I have to know the place and what happens here – I’m not risking another Dolly Pearson. The door opens, spilling pink light out onto a gravel path. Men climb into the van while the fat woman wedges herself at the steering wheel. The vehicle turns and travels past me. Queenie has left the building, so I move to the other side of the house away from the driveway.

  At least one ground floor room is a bedroom. Through a small gap in the curtains, I see an almost naked woman washing herself at a small sink. There’s a mirror on the ceiling above a double bed with a purple quilt and pillowcases in the same shade. The wall facing me is red, with pictures of naked people above the bed’s headboard.

  The woman’s voluptuous. She strips off her transparent black clothing and is changing into something as red as that wall. My body is responding; I suppose this is another test sent to me from above. Oh, how rounded and comfortable the whore is. Laura is thin except when pregnant. She’s the only woman I’ve ever had, and now I understand how men get tempted into fornication with these shameless hussies.

  I am confused. I haven’t touched Laura since . . . since Jean Davenport, but I could touch this one. Anybody can touch this one. How do I get picked up by that van? To discover the layout of this house, I need to be a customer. It will be my duty to copulate with one or more of the whores. Moving my eyes away from the vision is difficult, but I must go, because I have to be alone and hidden while I rid myself of terrible discomfort and indulge the need. I am a bad man.

  Back in the hedge, I see the fat woman returning in the van. Again, about six men disembark and enter the building. I lie down for a while. Behind my eyelids, the ground floor prostitute is stripping and washing herself. Oh God, spare me this torture. Still, it’s better than the vision of Dolly Pearson, I suppose.

  For a while, I doze, but am woken by the sound of the engine as Fatso drives her customers away, and back I go to the window with the gap in its curtains. She’s washing again. Her hair is brown and shiny; it looks like silk against alabaster. Of average height, she has a tiny waist, flaring hips and large breasts. This time, she’s dressing in white, which is supposed to be a sign of virginity.

  A man enters the room, and I realize that I’ve been too engrossed to hear the vehicle returning. I must have been standing here for ages. So the creature in white will have had several men tonight. I won’t be seen here; the van comes nowhere near this side. There is a strange beauty to what’s happening in the room. All my married life, I’ve been with a good, hardworking wife and mother who just . . . just lies there. A few feet away from me at this moment, there’s a limited view of joy through a small gap in curtains. She moves. She touches him. She laughs. She holds him. She climbs on top of him. She’s beautiful.

 
Jesus, help me. This wasn’t meant to happen, surely? I’m only human. I want what that man is getting from her. She’s naked now. So is he. In ten years, I have never seen Laura in the nude. When we do get together, my attitude is almost apologetic, as if my wife’s doing me a favour.

  Look. Look at her head thrown back and all that shining hair hanging lower down her spine, almost reaching her waist. Listen. She’s almost screaming, while he seems to growl like an animal. The deed has been done.

  They lie side by side for a while, and they’re having a quiet conversation. I’ve never had that, either. Laura always rolls away from me and falls asleep, sighing as if she’s glad the whole business is over. There’s seldom anything to say, anyway, because she knows nothing of life beyond the house and the children, doesn’t even read the paper or listen to the news. We’re a boring pair, I conclude. And now I almost understand why men use other women. Wives cook and clean and raise children, while these female receptacles serve a different purpose.

  He’s stroking her hair. They talk and laugh while he winds a long strand round his finger. I can almost feel her crowning glory, silky-smooth and long. Laura’s is sensible, I suppose. She keeps it short and easy to deal with, because she’s busy running the house. A wash-and-go style, she calls it. It’s wiry, with no shine and very little colour. I married a blonde, but she’s gone mousy as she’s got older. There seems to be more to living than waiting for safe days and a quick fumble in the dark. I love Laura, yet there is no pleasure to be had with her, no happiness in mating.

  The man’s getting dressed. He turns towards the window, startling me for a moment, but he doesn’t see me. I’m panicking for two reasons. First, I was afraid of being noticed; second, I know who he is.

  I step away and sit down under the window. That man is our butcher, a happy chap with red cheeks, smiling eyes and the best lamb chops for miles. Trevor Burns is his name. His wife works with him in the shop; he calls her Em, so I suppose she’s Emily. I’m sitting here on a hard and unforgiving path and I’m shaking my head. He has five children. He goes to our church with his wife and kids. Like most butchers, he’s slightly overweight, as is Em. Trevor Burns. Will he burn in hell? Is his name prophetic?

  Life is a learning process, and Trevor Burns is my key to this house. I hear the van driving away. When I stand, the woman inside is wearing a shabby old blue robe and clutching a large towel. Business is over for tonight, I guess, and she’s going for a bath. Water will not cleanse her soul of sin. And if I do what Butcher Burns just did, there’ll be no absolution for me, either. It’s all very confusing. It’s also exciting. I have never felt as alive as I do tonight.

  Jesus, is this part of it? Do I have to know these women in the biblical sense? Must I taste the sin before spitting it out and grinding it to dust?

  This is confusing, exciting, bad, good – and perhaps it’s connected to my mission. I must bow to the will of my Master.

  Roy and Bill were in it up to their necks. ‘You owe me,’ Boss told them. He focused on Bill. ‘I’ve brought you back here for a reason. I gave you over the odds for your crop, and you can make it up by doing drops or manufacturing for me. You’ll get paid. When you’ve worked off your debt, you’ll get paid more.’

  Bill was white as a sheet. ‘I’m starting work with my dad,’ he said. They were on the big man’s territory, and both boys were terrified.

  The reply arrived through a fog of cigar smoke. ‘That’s OK. You can do evening and weekend drops.’

  ‘But I live at the other side of Liverpool.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. We’ll come to you with the big drop, then you can do the smaller ones when we give you the meeting places. If you’re caught, you say nothing. All drops will be in your area.’ He turned to Roy. ‘You can stay here. You’ll be fed and paid to work, and your wages will increase depending on how hard you work.’

  Bill cleared his throat of fear. It tasted terrible. ‘I can’t do drops. We’ll be working in Chorley and Preston – he’s with a big firm, me dad. But I’ll keep my gob shut, like.’

  ‘Make sure you do, or accidents will happen.’

  ‘Er – what will I be doing, Boss?’ Roy asked.

  ‘You’ll be on ready-made spliffs with an extra ingredient. Don’t use any of the LSD yourself, because you might have a bad trip.’

  The boys looked at each other. A bad trip? The whole situation was a bad trip. They should have run away and let the plants die, since Roy was now tied into a life under Boss, who never used his real name, while Bill didn’t feel exactly safe.

  ‘And don’t do anything clever. We know where your families are,’ the big man said, his voice low and threatening.

  Roy shuffled on the spot. At least Bill would be going home and working with his dad. And yes, he did know what happened to families. A guy who had grassed up some big drugs people got his photo in the congratulations column of a local paper. Well done with the interview, the message had read. The interview had been with the cops, and the guy’s mother had been tied to a chair at home and beaten halfway to death. There was no hiding place.

  Five

  Constables Eddie Barnes and Dave Earnshaw were among many who had volunteered for low-paid and sometimes unpaid overtime. While some officers searched for a murderer, others chased about looking for the three supposedly abused boys who had fled and disappeared to God alone knew where. Both cases were of interest to national media, so the whole country was watching the Liverpool police force.

  It was a hard job for uniformed men who made their presence felt in the city for at least eight hours a day. After a shift in the Lime Street area, the two constables were fed in the station canteen, after which they enjoyed an hour’s rest before returning to duty when dusk began its descent. Somewhere out there, a serial killer was indulging his pastime.

  After their too-short break, Eddie and Dave joined colleagues spaced along the riverfront, which stretched for miles. Since the brutal murder of Dolly Pearson, whose broken body had upset even pathologists, nothing further had happened. As August peeped over the horizon, no new evidence had been found, and nobody else had died at the hands of a person nominated by the press as the Mersey Monster.

  ‘Maybe he’s moved on,’ Dave suggested. ‘He might go from one river to another, and he could be in Chester now, looking for women along the Dee. Mind, they won’t get many merchant sailors down the Dee, will they? Perhaps he’s given up.’

  Eddie held strong opinions, because he’d been reading everything he could find on the subject of serial killers. ‘They don’t give up, Dave, they get stopped by us or by their own death. I just get the feeling – and don’t ask me why – that he’s trying to clear Liverpool of prostitutes. Of course, he knows now that Mrs Pearson was just an eccentric elderly lady who wore the wrong clothes, so I think he’s having a pause. He’s a bad bugger on a mission; I feel it in my bones.’

  Dave pondered. ‘All these coppers and detectives will be putting him off. But this is a bloody long stretch of riverfront, Eddie. He could be anywhere from Otterspool to Waterloo.’ He paused. ‘It’s almost as if we’re wanting him to do another one, but we’re too visible.’

  ‘Then lives are being saved for now, which can’t be a bad thing. Come on, we’ll get a cuppa in that late-night cafe. What with murdered women and runaway boys, we’re all a bit overstretched and we deserve a short sit.’

  They stepped into the decrepit place known as Pat and Paul’s Cafe. A smell of rancid fat hung in the air and clung lovingly to curtains and tablecloths. The floor was covered in ancient lino that boasted stains in various colours. Dave went to order tea while Eddie settled in an uncomfortable chair and lit a longed-for Navy Cut.

  The dump was quite busy, filled mostly by lorry drivers, but with a few policemen and detectives scattered about. There wasn’t a single clean item in the place, and the staff, just the man and wife, looked totally unfit to be in human company. They were sweaty, and their supposedly white overalls bore almost as m
any shades of colour as the lino.

  ‘What the hell are we doing in here?’ Eddie mouthed quietly after blowing a perfect smoke ring.

  A man at the next table smiled. ‘Not a pleasant place to eat, is it? My wife would be sending for a fumigation unit.’

  ‘We’re desperate,’ Eddie replied. ‘Been on our feet for ten hours.’

  The man nodded. ‘This is the only cafe open along here at this time of night. A lot of hard work for you just now,’ he added. ‘The murders, I mean. Any idea who it is yet? He must be very different from ordinary folk, I suppose.’

  ‘It’s a psycho,’ Eddie said. ‘A psycho looks just like everybody else. According to an expert in these things, he’s possibly even married with a couple of kids, a wife who has no idea what he’s up to, and a very ordinary job. A clever nutcase on a mission can take some catching, but we’ll get him.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ the stranger asked.

  ‘Even brilliant psychos make mistakes. Dolly Pearson was one of them.’

  ‘Let’s hope you put a stop to him, then.’ Neil Carson finished his cuppa, said goodnight and walked to the door. He got his bike and wheeled it past the window, waving to the policeman as he raised a leg over the crossbar. ‘Good luck,’ he mouthed. They would need luck, because Neil Carson’s target now sat out in the wilds, a farmhouse shielded by bushes and trees and a fat queen bee. They would catch him? Oh no, he was too clever for that.

  Eddie Barnes shivered, though he didn’t know why, because the evening was warm. What did Mam always say when she shuddered involuntarily? ‘Somebody walked over my grave’? Yes, that was it.

  Dave arrived with two mugs of tea and some wrapped biscuits. ‘We should get the health inspectors in here. Folk could be poisoned.’ He gazed at his partner. ‘Are you all right, lad? You look done in.’

  ‘I think I’m OK. I’m a bit tired, that’s all.’ But he still felt cold.

  ‘Who were you talking to?’ Dave asked.