Midnight on Lime Street

by Ruth Hamilton

  As she neared the chip shop, Laura Carson froze in her tracks. The cross. The initials. The diamond cutting on one side. It all crashed into her head for the umpteenth time. The newspaper she’d discovered among the wrappings. Once again, she allowed her mind free rein. Where had he discovered that cross? Initials – what had they been? Had the murderer of the girl dropped it, sold it as second hand, or . . . ? No, no, he could not be the killer. Perhaps Neil had found the jewellery on the pavement near the murder site; or he could have bought it, she tried to reassure herself.

  Mind, he’d stopped going to Confession and Holy Communion. Why? He’d been so punctilious, Confession once a fortnight, Communion every Sunday, Benediction, Midnight Mass at Christmas, wearing the mark on his forehead on Ash Wednesday, kneeling in church for the vigil through part of Good Friday and Holy Saturday, serving at the altar if there were too few boys to do the job. Now? Nothing. There was nothing in his head, nothing in his eyes, no vestige of the man he had been.

  She waited for her heart to slow, leaning her body against the wall of the ironmonger’s shop next door to her place of work. Should she talk to the police? How might Matt and Lucy feel if their father got taken in for questioning? And the cross had disappeared before Neil had left the house, so she couldn’t check the initials.

  It was a quarter past eleven, time to start chipping the potatoes in readiness for lunchtime. There was batter to mix, bread to butter, there were soaking marrowfats to transfer to the pan. She wasn’t responsible for all those tasks, but she had fast become part of the well-oiled machine created by the Bramwells. They liked her. The customers liked her, while her children and the Bramwells got on very well together.

  She pulled herself together, fixed a bright smile to her face and went to do the job she loved.

  Sister Helen Veronica had not been prepared properly. She had been in training as owner of a working dog; the detective helping her had travelled all the way from Birmingham in order to teach her how the animal would react in the presence of drugs. ‘He’s one of the first in this country,’ he explained, ‘and some of us went to Paris to learn the job. A dog’s sense of smell is about forty times superior to ours, because they’re wolves, carnivores that had to hunt to live. Watch me, watch him, and watch where the drugs are.’

  Helen, happy enough to be educated, wondered what St Veronica thought about the presence of heroin, amphetamines, cocaine and cannabis in the convent. But within days, she and the animal known as Nelson were tuned in to each other. Instructed to keep the dog with her at all times, she put his bed next to hers and took him out with her every day, and he even attended services in the chapel and some meals in the refectory.

  Sister Helen, otherwise known as Smelly Nellie, was only semi-prepared. Nothing on earth could have fully prepared her for the love. Nelson was of a serious, almost studious turn of mind. His first owner had grown old, and Nelson had experienced little fun for some time. He knew when he was working and when he wasn’t. As a scruffy-looking professional, he wore no collar and required no leash, since he needed to be independent and mobile when at work; as a pet, he sported a leather collar and had begun to play a game named by his owner ‘pawball’. She kicked a tennis ball, and he pawed it back to her.

  The vet had declared the crossbreed to be part bearded collie, part terrier and part human. ‘He’s a grand dog, in very good health for a five-year-old, but he needs more exercise and some activity to cheer him up a bit.’

  Of course, the whole convent tried to ruin him until the sisters were told not to feed him or fuss him, because this was a special dog, one who must have just the one owner who would nourish him, walk him and keep him well. He must cling to her and only to her, since he should not get distracted. ‘He wears no restraints outside,’ she told her fellows. ‘He has to pin himself to me on the streets, or he’ll be run over. At the station, he must concentrate on what his nose tells him, and when he signals I shall inform one of the policemen. Nelson will ensure that I stay undercover by keeping his reactions discreet – he will never jump on a carrier of drugs. So please, leave him to me and Mary. She’s the other one who may be at Lime Street, and she is the only exception to the rule.’

  So Helen and Nelson became roommates. She talked to him, prayed with him and taught him how to play. When not on duty in town, she introduced him to the convent grounds, where he did all the sniffing and digging that comes naturally to dogs. Yet he never approached the small graveyard where several Veronicas rested. He watched other nuns working in vegetable patches, but he didn’t interfere with those areas, either.

  When on duty, he accepted without reaction the patting and fussing doled out by people passing through. He seemed to keep one eye on Holy Mary, the agent provocateuse, and the other on entrances to platforms. Helen often found herself grinning at the dog she had supposedly found and rescued. If the dealers did but know it, they had a genius on their heels.

  Within a week, the club known to police as Nellie, Mary and Tatty Arse caused the capture of no fewer than three dealers who had brought their wares via train to Liverpool. Through a complicated set of signals, the culprits were followed and arrested away from the discovery site, often in excess of a mile from the station. And Helen, at long, long last, had someone of her own to love.

  Lisa Horrocks, who insisted that she was no longer three years of age but nearly four, stood on Tom’s red rug in front of the fireplace in his best room. Belle was in the living room/kitchen, while Tom Duffield sat on the sofa under the gimlet eye of a child whose mentality was probably closer to forty than four. She folded little arms across her chest. ‘How old are you?’ she asked.

  ‘Forty-eight next birthday.’

  ‘Oh.’ Lisa shifted weight from one foot to the other, then back again. ‘Isn’t that nearly dead?’ she demanded to know.

  He felt like an interviewee for a monumentally important job like managing director of the Woolworth chain, a butler for Her Majesty, or a Vatican guard. ‘No, it isn’t nearly dead, Lisa. Your grandparents are older than I am, and I trust they have many years of happy life to look forward to.’

  ‘You’re older than my mummy.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘And you’ve only got one hand. Why have you only got one hand?’

  He shrugged. ‘A machine stole it. Cut it off.’

  The child’s mouth shaped itself into a perfect O. ‘Did it hurt?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was there loads and loads and loads of blood?’

  ‘Some, yes.’

  She thought about that for a few seconds. ‘I suppose you had to be a brave soldier, like me when I go for inject-shuns. I never cry, so I always get a jelly baby off Nora Nitty from the Bug Committee.’

  He tried not to laugh. ‘Is she the one who looks in your hair for crawlers?’

  ‘That’s right. At nursery, she visits a lot. She says it’s a plague area.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘What’s a plague?’

  He considered his reply. ‘It’s an illness that jumps from one person to the next.’

  ‘Like nits?’

  ‘Like nits.’ He wondered how he was doing in this impromptu interview, because he’d had no warning, no time to prepare a curriculum vitae. He could hear Belle chuckling quietly; he would deal with her later. Dealing with her was very enjoyable.

  Lisa took a step closer to her victim. ‘Are you my dad now?’

  Tom cocked his head to one side and grinned at her.

  ‘Well?’ She was tapping a foot, something she’d learnt from her grandmother. ‘Are you my new dad?’

  Oh, he could see Belle in this one. Belle was sweet, kind and motherly, but there was a tiger underneath the fluffy surface. And here stood the tiger kitten, claws not quite sheathed, teeth not quite hidden. ‘That’s up to you, Lisa. Do you want a dad?’

  She glared at him. ‘Do dads buy things for kids?’

  ‘Sometimes. I used to buy toys for my sons.’

  His r
eply stopped her dead in her tracks. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘With their mother.’

  ‘Why? Why aren’t they here in your house?’

  ‘Their mother doesn’t like me any more, so she took them with her when she left.’

  Lisa looked at the ceiling, then through the window, then at the floor. ‘Just a minute,’ she said before leaving for the kitchen.

  Tom breathed out. He felt like a footballer at half time during a big international match.

  Belle was ready, though she played the innocent. ‘Hello, love.’

  ‘He had a Mrs Duffield, but she left him cos she didn’t like him.’

  ‘And?’ Belle dried a saucer.

  ‘Will you stop liking him?’

  ‘No. She didn’t want him because he had only one hand. She wouldn’t help to do his bandages.’

  ‘Right.’ Lisa returned to the interview room.

  Tom removed his ear from the wall just in time and sat down quickly. ‘Ah, you’re back,’ he commented. ‘Have I passed?’

  ‘Passed what?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he said solemnly.

  ‘Let me look at it.’

  ‘What?’

  She glanced heavenward again; grown-ups were such hard work. ‘The hand that isn’t there. I want to see it.’

  ‘It isn’t there.’

  The child’s arms were now akimbo; given a bucket, a mop and a hairnet, she would have looked like a miniature cleaning woman. ‘Mummy!’ she yelled.

  Belle appeared. ‘What, love?’ She was having a hard time, because she wanted to fall about laughing.

  ‘Tell him, will you? Tell him what I mean.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lisa.’

  The child’s voice rose in pitch and volume. ‘The hand that isn’t there,’ she screamed angrily.

  Belle looked at Tom. Belle shouldn’t have looked at Tom, because both were in a state worse than Russia. ‘Show her your stump,’ she snapped, just to hold back the laughter.

  With mock solemnity, he rolled up his sleeve while Lisa closed the small distance between herself and him. ‘There you are, Lisa – the hand that isn’t there.’

  Belle lost the inclination to laugh. There sat her lovely husband displaying his healed wound to a bossy little madam.

  Lisa touched her lips, then carried the kiss on her fingers and gave it to his wrist. ‘Right, that should make it all better. You can be my dad if you want. I’m going to Amelia’s now.’

  And that was that.

  ‘I think I’ve just been adopted,’ he told his new wife solemnly.

  ‘Hmm. There’s a strong possibility. And all without a general anaesthetic. I wonder if she’ll decide to move in with us?’

  ‘Oh, I hope so, Belle. Though I’d hate to deprive Sam and Frankie. Let’s just give it time, baby. What are we eating tonight?’

  ‘Finger foods?’ She arched an eyebrow.

  ‘You have a sick sense of humour, Isabella Duffield.’

  ‘I know. Don’t you just love it?’

  He chased her out of the room, along the hall and into the kitchen where he cornered her. ‘Good job I’m hand-some then, isn’t it?’

  ‘And hand-y about the house.’

  He looked round the room. ‘Do you need a hand?’

  ‘Can you spare one, Mr Duffield?’

  The joke would run forever, but he didn’t mind. This wonderful woman loved him, and his happiness cup was full to the brim.

  Eve threw down her shopping list and turned off the radio. Another girl was dead, garrotted with wire, exactly the same as the earlier victims. An idea was taking shape in her mind like a series of photographs lined up before her inner eye. The man needed taking out of the mix, and the police had got nowhere with the other murders.

  She lit a Woodbine and inhaled deeply. There was something about cigarettes that kicked a mind into gear whenever it showed signs of slowing down or pulling into a lay-by. Unlike drink, tobacco dragged a person into the now instead of placing a layer of mist over thoughts and deeds.

  All three murders had taken place close to the Dock Road under the cover of darkness at approximately half past ten at night. All three women had been strangled to death, and there had been no witnesses. Well, perhaps she might try to put that right. Of course, she’d need a touch of luck, but it was worth a try, especially when it involved dealing with a murderer.

  Kate entered the office. ‘Any luck getting replacements for Belle and Angela, then?’

  Eve nodded, though her mind was elsewhere. ‘Belle’s found a few possibles. I’m meeting them next Monday. Kate?’

  ‘That’s me.’ She positioned a cup of coffee under Eve’s nose.

  ‘I’ve been thinking. The van.’

  ‘What about the van?’

  Eve shrugged. ‘There are a lot of vehicles parked or abandoned down there by the river.’

  ‘And?’ Kate placed herself in the chair facing Eve’s desk.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if a couple of heavies came with us and maybe one of the girls? Imagine the poetic justice if we put a stop to him.’

  The cook/housekeeper’s jaw dropped. She snapped her mouth closed. ‘You can’t go taking the law into your own hands, Eve. We could get done for murder ourselves.’

  ‘Not if he’s got a woman and he’s trying to kill her.’

  ‘It could be too late for the poor cow.’

  Eve nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes, but she’d be the last, wouldn’t she? And some heavies know where to buy or borrow a gun with a wotsit on – silencer. We could get him killed without having to touch him.’ She thrummed her fingers on the desk. ‘There’s a pattern to the killings, Kate. He’s killed three at the same time, one on a Thursday, two on Fridays. It could be his way of celebrating the weekend – who knows? There’s a gap between the murders. This is a shift worker with a job in Liverpool. I bet he goes home the Dock Road way, parks his car, finds a girl on her own, and Bob’s his uncle.’

  Kate swallowed audibly. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Evie.’

  ‘Don’t I always? Get cooking, babe. At least we’ve fewer mouths to feed while we’re shut.’

  The older woman left the office. Sometimes, it was impossible to drum sense into Eve Mellor’s head. Anyway, there was a meal to cook and be served up. Life went on. Well, it went on till some heavy with a gun put a stop to it.

  Ten

  Belle, Eve and Tom had a lunchtime meal together in a sit-down chippy in town. They were discussing the future of Meadowbank, and the noise of other people talking and coming in for takeaways was a good screen behind which they could hide. Even so, the two women kept their voices low while imparting and receiving information. Although Tom sat with them, he distanced himself mentally, concentrating instead on the famous Lancashire combination of fish, chips, peas, buttered bread and a huge mug of strong tea.

  ‘You’ve worked hard, then,’ Eve said. ‘And I’m grateful, because you’re newly-weds and I know you’ve better things to do with your time. So tell me about these terrible twins. Are they identical?’

  Belle grinned. ‘Ah yes, the Gilroys. No, they’re chalk and cheese, one fair, one dark, both good company. If you ever get bored, they sing and tap dance and perform old music hall acts. Alice does all sorts of play-acting, including a lot of Angela’s kind of stuff, and she’s damned good at everything. Theresa – she goes by Terry most of the time – is a direct replacement for me. She’s massage with extras, so more of your clients will be pleased. And the twins will have threesomes or foursomes, so that might go down well. A bunch of grapes and sheets worn like togas, and you can call it an orgy.’

  Tom went to the counter for three more teas. Although he accepted his wife’s past and loved her dearly, he felt uncomfortable about listening to explicit details. He wanted to keep Belle away from all this stuff, but he refused to put his foot down. Victoria was long dead, and most women made up their own minds about life these days, which was fair enough af
ter all the time and effort spent gaining the right to vote and running the country during six years of war.

  Eve was correct about one thing, because Belle had worked hard to get more girls away from pimps and off the streets. Belle was a good woman, and she wouldn’t return to that other life, would she? But Eve didn’t look well, he thought.

  ‘Is he all right?’ Eve was asking.

  ‘It bothers him a bit. He doesn’t want to know about their special skills and threesomes – all that leaves him cold. Tom never sat with me while I talked to the girls – he always parked himself apart from us in the pubs and kept an eye on me. He wants to forget that side of life.’

  ‘But that side of life is part of what you are and were. You’ve moved on, and he loves you – he can’t take his eyes off you. Does he trust you, though? Because that’s what matters.’

  ‘Yes, and I trust and love him. Let’s get through these while he’s in the tea queue. No point upsetting him more than absolutely necessary.’

  Eve agreed readily. ‘Are they good natured, these twins?’

  Belle nodded. ‘They should have gone on the stage, if I’m honest. It’s all banter and laughter with them; they even make their clients laugh. If you need another baby, Betty Halliwell can be anything you want from a baby to an adult. She’s in her twenties, barely five foot tall, and the twins are early thirties and normal height.’ She passed a small book across the table. ‘There’s a dozen names with specialities and contact details in there, so I’ve given you plenty of choice. But the Gilroys and Betty would make for a happy house.’ She grinned. ‘I know it’s a good place already, but with Angela and Babs gone it’ll be a bit less like an endless boxing match.’

  ‘Thanks, Belle.’ Eve managed to sound all right, though she was having trouble digesting her food. She clung to the subject of girls. ‘The part-timers who stepped in were useless, always having headaches and what they called ovulation pain, so they wanted time off twice every month. We miss you.’ She glanced at Tom. ‘How can he carry three teas?’