Midnight on Lime Street

by Ruth Hamilton

  Joseph’s old van was parked up the side of the end-of-terrace house. ‘I’ll need that tonight,’ he said aloud. His thinking was always clearer in the mornings; by night time he was often confused and uncertain, but after a good sleep he was usually back to normal. She mustn’t have spoken to the cops yet, because they still hadn’t arrived . . .

  Normal? Did he remember normal?

  Of course he did. Normal was taking Matt and Lucy to the park while Laura cooked and set the table for the big Sunday meal. It was a day in Blackpool or Southport, a week in Cornwall, the sorting or collecting of mail, an evening at the cinema, Sunday tea with grandparents, a visit to Port Sunlight or Speke Hall, a bit of sea-fishing with Joseph and others from work. ‘I’ve even stopped missing my children and my wife,’ he told the floor. ‘But I was all right till Jesus and Judas turned up that night. Were they really there, or did I imagine them? I’m sure I never drank that beer . . .’

  Laura had betrayed him with a tall jeweller. She would probably betray him again by going to the police and jangling on about a cross with initials on the back. He needed punishment. He needed Angela to whip him, bring his flesh to life and prepare him for tonight. Tonight. He wanted an alibi, but chance would be a fine thing, since his one and only friend was dead, as was Maude.

  The pacing began, wall to window, window to wall. Think, think. There was a can in the back of Joseph’s van, and it was full of petrol. He stopped and swallowed. It was the only way to be rid of both his enemies in one fell swoop; the children would be in the flat above the chip shop . . . ‘while Laura and Martindale will be in my house.’ It was his house. He’d worked hard all his married life, had provided for his family while she had probably hated him all along. Now, she was beautiful, good enough for a wealthy old man. She wore makeup and high-heeled shoes, pretty blouses, and soft, silk scarves. Her hair shone, while her head was held high as if she’d won a medal or a damehood, and she had some new jewellery, too. Hatred flourished in his chest. He had loved her, had been a faithful husband until . . . until Jesus and Judas.

  He carried on walking. Petrol, rags and matches. Alibi? The Hen and Chickens was busy on Saturday nights; he could go to the men’s room, nip out, do what had to be done, then get back to his drink. Before going in the pub, he would make sure that the children were with the Bramwells. Was the Hen and Chickens too close to his target? Think, think, think. No, the pub wouldn’t do, since it would close too early . . .

  The solution arrived on a plate, both literally and metaphorically. The very deaf Mrs Wray from next door shouted through the letter box. ‘Are you there, Mr Carson?’ Oh dear, what did the old girl want?

  Neil opened the door and she pushed an apple pie into his hands. ‘I have to go to me sister’s, love, because she’s been took badly with the sciatica, and can’t walk. I’ll be back some time tomorrow, but will you sit with Norman tonight? You don’t need to be upstairs with him; just listen in case he falls again. I’ll put him to bed early before I go, like. A neighbour’s with our Brenda till eight-ish.’

  For answer, he nodded, since shouting at the Wrays was a tiring business. He carried his pie into the kitchen and decided that Jesus had arranged all this. Norman was deafer than his wife, so he wouldn’t know that Neil had nipped out to deal with Laura and her aged lover. Ten minutes there, ten back, half an hour to work out how he would set the fire and to do the deed.

  First, he would need to go earlier to make sure that Matt and Lucy would be sleeping elsewhere, because children were not on his hit list. They could live here with him, and the clap would be dealt with, to hell with embarrassment. He’d be a good dad, but he’d need to work days only, since someone must be here for the children.

  Notebook. He dug it out of a drawer and plotted his day. At six o’clock, he would watch Laura taking the children to her place of work. By seven thirty, he would be next door with Norman Wray, who should be upstairs and asleep in bed by that time. He stopped writing. ‘Am I sure about Laura and her bloke sleeping together?’ he asked the empty room. ‘If Mr Jewellery’s downstairs on the sofa, he might hear me messing about near the door. Front door, back door – which is best? And what if Martindale doesn’t sleep there tonight?’ He sighed deeply. They both knew about the gold cross, and both needed to be out of the picture.

  It was never going to be easy. A man chosen as a disciple by Jesus could not expect life to be a walk in the park. A small smile visited his lips. With Laura gone, the children would go to a park again on Sundays, and they would be accompanied by their father.

  Babs carried her disquiet into the chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce. ‘Where were you?’ Babs, who clung to the opinion that she had done well this morning, was looking for answers. She eyed her purple-clad friend. ‘It was no fun, Sal, because the men’s buttonholes were wrong and all kinds of mad people kept turning up.’ She eyed Don. ‘You’ve rented a man just to pull corks out of bottles? I don’t know about a corkscrew, but he’d a few other screws missing, the jumped-up fool.’

  Don eyed his best Baby Girl. ‘I want everything to be right,’ he replied.

  Babs glared at Sally. ‘Well?’

  ‘I told you – I was doing stuff,’ Sally replied, her cheeks glowing.

  ‘In a coal mine? Or have you worked a quick shift down the docks?’

  Don spoke up. ‘Leave her alone, Babs. She was helping outside.’

  ‘Leave her alone? Leave her a-bloody-lone? That’s what she did to me. Her job was to get me ready, but she came in as black as a stew-pot and the hairdresser had to do it all.’

  Sally giggled.

  ‘What’s funny?’ the bride asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘It’s me nerves,’ Sally said. ‘I start giggling when I get nervous. I used to laugh when we had tests at school – I can’t help it.’

  Babs blew a loud raspberry. ‘In my book about etiketty, it says the chief bridesmaid’s main concern is preparing the bride, though that job is sometimes taken over by a relative. I’ve no rellies here, so it was up to you, you soft mare.’

  Don interceded again. ‘You’ll see the results of Sally’s labours soon enough. Behave yourself for once, please.’

  ‘I always behave myself.’

  Don nodded. ‘When you’re asleep, yes. It’s just when you’re awake we have problems. Calm down, because you’ll be married in about ten minutes unless Gordy changes his mind.’

  ‘I’d kill him.’

  The giver-away of the bride smiled. ‘Exactly. That would be extremely bad behaviour even for you. Calm down and pretend you’re a lady.’

  ‘I’m not a lady. I never wanted to be all frills and h’aitches h’in h’all the right places. I’m a woman. Small, like, but still a woman.’

  Don resigned from the argument, sitting back in his seat to demonstrate his decision to withdraw from the field of battle. Where Babs was concerned, the least-said-and-soonest-mended school of thought was sometimes appropriate, especially for someone whose survival depended on tablets.

  The car glided to a graceful, soundless halt.

  Babs swallowed. This was it; Custer’s last stand, the final few moments of being single. Still, she wouldn’t get a chest full of arrows like poor Custer . . . There was just one dart in her chest, and that was her love for Gordy.

  ‘We’re here,’ Don announced unnecessarily. He stepped out of the car, offering his arm first to the bride, then to her attendant. In a small lobby, Sally straightened Babs’s dress and her own. ‘Aren’t you cold?’ she asked.

  Babs wasn’t feeling anything. ‘I don’t know,’ she answered truthfully. She was getting married. Little Barbara Schofield from Sefton Park, Dingle, Bootle, Seaforth and any other place to which her family had fled due to unwillingness to pay rent, was going up in the world. She had a good man, a house with proper furniture and the greatest horse in England. It was like a dream, a good dream.

  ‘It’s November,’ the younger girl announced. ‘Come o
n, let’s get in there, because I’m freezing.’

  The inner doors were opened by two smiling ushers, and the strains of a quiet piece of Bach greeted the new arrivals. ‘We can’t have hymns,’ Babs whispered, ‘because it’s a civil ceremony.’

  ‘Then be civil.’ These words were delivered from a corner of Don’s mouth.

  ‘I’ll try.’

  The music stopped and was replaced by Barbara Ann, one of Gordy’s favourites. This livelier music was also played quietly and was turned up just a fraction when Gordy’s Barbara stepped onto the scarlet runner that stretched between two blocks of seating. She stopped. Belle and Tom were here, as were Angela and the rest – even the new girls.

  Eve, near the double doors and in a wheelchair, smiled at the naughty young minx she missed so badly. ‘Just your friends, Babs. Worry not.’

  The girl who never cried looked ahead to where Gordy stood with Lippy Macey. Both wore purple waistcoats and purple ties. The girl who never cried blinked rapidly because she never cried. Eve was frail. Skin stretched by too much flesh now hung in loose folds over her collar. The girls looked good, and they knew how to behave in company, so there was no danger of the bride’s being categorized as a whore. But Eve, poor Eve . . .

  It was time to concentrate on her future, which would begin at the side of a short but good-looking man who had wanted to be a jockey. His best man, Lippy Macey, towered above the groom, while four ushers stood against walls as if expecting a riot. She heard a little girl laughing and shouting ‘Pretty’, the voice rising above the quietened Barbara Ann. That would be Belle’s Lisa, Babs decided. Belle was pregnant again, though very few people knew about that.

  By the time she reached Gordy’s side, her throat felt full, as if a bit of food had been lodged in it; she was happy and sad, and she didn’t know why. She looked at the registrar, a man of medium height with a pot belly and a smiley face. Bride and groom were allowed to make their own vows as long as the official performed the legal side of the ceremony.

  She was going to cry. She would not cry, because she had never cried as a child, even after falling off swings, walls or bicycles.

  Gordy spoke about the obstacles they would need to clear, about soft ground, hard ground, easy going and muddy tracks. His soft accent delivered the promise to love and cherish her evermore, to care and provide for any children and to walk by her side always.

  It was her turn, but her mind was a blank page. A poem; she had chosen a poem. Not Wordsworth, not Coleridge, not Don’s usual lakeside fare. She swallowed. Pushkin, Alexander, died 1837. She knew when he’d died, but the poem eluded her.

  ‘Barbara?’ The kindly registrar was prompting her.

  Right. It flooded back like a tidal wave, the first and last verses of ‘Wondrous Moment’. She would try to talk proper, like.

  ’The wondrous moment of our meeting,

  I well remember you appear

  Before me like a vision fleeting,

  A beauty’s angel, pure and clear.

  In ecstasy the heart is beating,

  Old joys for it anew revive,

  Inspired and God-filled, it is greeting

  The fire, and tears, and love alive.’

  The registrar was mopping his eyes, while members of the congregation were sniffing and clearing throats. Babs turned on them. ‘It’s not a funeral,’ she announced loudly. Then she looked at Eve and knew that there would be a funeral quite soon. Eve had scolded her back at the farm just like a mam should; she’d recognized fire in Babs, had even allowed her to win from time to time. There had been war; there had been mutual respect – even affection of a kind. Babs blew a kiss at her old friend and enemy. Eve returned the gesture.

  Within a couple of minutes, Gordy and Babs were man and wife. And that was when the dam burst.

  Gordy dragged a strange item from his top pocket. It was a bit of white handkerchief fastened to a piece of card. ‘I had to cut mine up,’ he told her, ‘because my bride was in a mood when I phoned and asked for help. The ushers have the same.’

  Laughter joined tears, and Babs fought to pull herself together before hysteria claimed her. ‘Is this how our life’s going to be?’ she asked, the words fractured by emotions she scarcely understood.

  ‘Probably. Come on now, we must sign the book to get our certificate. And stop the tears before your mascara runs. I don’t want a black-eyed wife on the wedding photos. People will think I beat you up, so.’

  They signed their names, and a ripple of applause travelled from the back of the room to the front. From the walls stared civic dignitaries captured in the past and trapped behind glass, mustachioed Victorians, Edwardians in sombre hats and dark clothes, a few who looked as if they might have lived more recently, in the 1940s and 50s. Sunlight pierced windows of stained glass, spreading colours over the volume in which the couple wrote their names. It was done, and Barbara was no longer weeping.

  Lippy whispered a few words to Sally, who came forward and repaired minor damage to the bride’s makeup. They walked down the red carpet while Glenn Miller’s music played in the background. Photographs of the main players in the wedding party were taken. Later, when the whole gathering had been captured on film, a black carriage arrived, a splendid affair pulled by two greys with white plumes on their heads.

  Gordy and Babs sat in this chariot. A white velvet cloak with a white fur collar was placed by her husband around Babs’s shoulders. ‘There you are now, pet. That’s imitation ermine; you could join the House of Lords, so you could.’

  A coach held most of the party, while Eve and Kate were helped into Lippy Macey’s van, which also held the wheelchair.

  ‘Why aren’t we moving?’ Babs asked.

  ‘Wait. Try a little patience for once.’

  From a nearby side street, Murdoch appeared. He shone like polished copper, his tail plaited, his mane combed straight. The horse wore rosettes he’d never won because he was meant to be a secret, while bright horse brasses gleamed on his tack. Lippy Macey’s men guided the horse and blind Nye to the carriage, and Murdoch led the procession homeward.

  Nye’s bell sounded with every step he took. Shoppers stopped in their tracks and stared at the procession – one red-bay horse, one donkey, a carriage pulled by paler steeds and a slow-moving Rolls-Royce, with a single-decker bus and a van bringing up the rear. But this was Southport, so there was no applause, and no children ran by the side of the wedding party.

  The bride and groom held hands. ‘That’s why Sally was missing,’ Gordy explained, ‘because she was looking for Murdoch and brushing Nye.’

  Babs squeezed his fingers. ‘She brushed Nye?’

  He nodded. ‘And we all know what happens to brushers of Nye. Was she muddy?’

  ‘She was.’

  ‘She did it for Murdoch, babe. You know he doesn’t like to leave his best friend behind.’

  After biting her lip, the bride said, ‘I was horrible to her.’

  ‘That’s normal, wife. And we are all used to it.’

  ‘Am I horrible?’

  ‘Yes, but lovely with it.’

  ‘They’re all staring at us.’

  ‘That’s because you’re lovely, and they haven’t seen you horrible.’

  She slapped his hand. ‘Just wait till I get you home.’

  The groom chuckled. ‘Promises. Empty promises.’

  There had been a delivery of snow for just a few minutes, and the children were outside trying to scrape together enough to make a miniature snowman. Laura watched them for a while, smiling anew at the innocence of the young. She wanted them to stay like that, at a safe distance from life’s harsher truths, but she now knew that would be impossible.

  Removing her notes from the bureau, she whispered them into the room. ‘Started having nightmares towards the end of summer when the killings began. He screamed in his sleep. After a week or two of that, he began to use foul language referring to female body parts. I asked him to leave for the sake of my children, Matt and Lu
cy.’

  She glanced at the window, checking the precious ones again. They were laughing. Would their natural happiness be spoilt by what was about to happen?

  ‘I found a cross and chain in his chest of drawers. It was hidden under socks. There were initials on the back of the cross. The front was ornate and very like the one in the newspaper photograph, diamond cut, and without a Christ figure. At my place of work, I saw an article in an old newspaper. It stated that Jean Davenport’s initialled cross had been missing from her body. I could not remember the initials I’d seen on the cross in his drawer, but I confronted him and lied, asking what he’d been doing with a piece of jewellery that bore the initials J and D, and he shook like a leaf in a gale.’

  Matt had taken a tumble, but he stood up and rubbed his knees like a brave little soldier. He would need to remain brave, as would his sister.

  ‘He says he bought the jewellery from a street trader on Paddy’s Market, but I don’t believe him. For years, he was as steady as a rock, then he suddenly became jumpy and strange. He may not be the Mersey Monster, but I thought I should talk to you just in case. I have my two children, and I fear for them if their father gets arrested. On the other hand, I am finding it very difficult to sit here with my suspicions without doing anything.’

  Laura tapped her teeth with a pen. The day was growing cold, and darkness threatened, so she stashed away the notes and put sausages under the grill. The vegetables were already in the steamer, so there remained only the tasks of browning Wall’s Pork Sausages and creaming the potatoes.

  Andy let himself in; he had his own key now.

  Laura raised her head from the tasks in hand and smiled at him. ‘Did you close early?’ she asked.