A Mersey Mile

by Ruth Hamilton

  ‘As you wish.’ She swept out, leaving behind her a distinct chill and the aroma of expensive perfume.

  Frank panicked. Was she capable of hurting Polly? Was she mad enough for murder? If so, there were two of them on the loose, since Eugene Brennan was probably still alive. Both had cold eyes. Each was self-engrossed and self-indulgent. Polly had to be safe, as had Cal. Frank made up his mind there and then to move properly to Scotland Road. He would be here in the shop all day, but nights must be spent with Polly.

  For a brief moment, he considered phoning Elaine Lewis’s bosses, but what could he say? ‘Your Miss Lewis sits outside my premises on Rice Lane almost every night’ would sound pathetic, as might ‘She’s obsessed with me, wants me to bed her.’ She wasn’t having the bloody tantalus, either. He would give it to Chris as a gift for Christmas. He slapped a sticky SOLD label on one of the decanters and put the whole thing away in a cupboard. Miss Elaine Lewis could go to hell, where she would no doubt find suitable company.

  He packed a small case with underwear, pyjamas, toiletries and clean shirts. There was a baby to protect, too. As head of a small family, he needed to be on guard against the decorative sepulchre who would be involved in the Billy Blunt case. The damned woman had lost her grip on herself; no, she was no sepulchre, no burial site, no whitened grave. She was more dangerous than whatever was implied by that Biblical reference. Elaine Lewis was a powerful vehicle out of control.

  Elaine seemed to have lost the ability to breathe. She sat in her car on Rice Lane and listened to her own rasping airways. Was this asthma? She’d never before suffered from it; her physical health had always been good, because she was a perfect specimen.

  She didn’t realize that this was a full-blown, adrenalin-charged panic attack. The day darkened, seeming to close in around her as if pushing her into the abyss. Did death feel like this? Was she going to shuffle off the coil at the age of twenty-three? After struggling to open her window, she managed to gain some oxygen, though breathing out wasn’t easy, either. What if Frank Charleson spoke to the partners? He’d refused to deal with her. He knew, he knew, he bloody knew!

  What did he know? That she wanted his body to connect with hers? Or did he think she’d chosen him as a husband? Because the latter was the truth, and she had to face it. Did love make a person crazy? Did it interfere with the very basic and necessary act of breathing? Was she in love? If she was, it was an illness. A lecturer at Oxford had preached just that – it was a serious illness with the ability to interfere with all physical and mental functions. Many a first-class degree was reduced to a lower second because of love, he had insisted. Well, she’d managed to avoid that situation, hadn’t she?

  She calmed down slowly. Right. The most important requirement was self-protection. If Frank complained about her, she might lose her job, the very thing that defined her. He had to be stopped. How, though? More to the point, why was he choosing fried cod when there was high-grade salmon on the menu?

  ‘Remember that love unreturned is only an inch from hatred,’ the Oxford savant had continued. ‘It is a well-known fact that most murders happen within families or as a result of unfulfilled sexual desire, which is almost always the basis for love between human adults.’ And she had listened. After listening, she had found her flat and had isolated herself. Anyone who stared at her during lectures was awarded what she termed her evil eye. When accosted, she simply said nothing and walked away. Being labelled frigid was all right with her.

  But here she was, sitting in a car on a road between rows of Victorian properties, some commercial, some residential, longing for a man who didn’t want her. Why? What was it about this particular man? She saw naked desire in the eyes of most men, but nothing in his. Was that her problem? Had she homed in on him because instinct told her it would be a difficult job? Did she value the unattainable in order to prove that she could win against all odds?

  Breathing became easier. She inhaled through her nose, exhaled from the mouth. It was all about control. Somehow, she would have to silence Frank.

  A lawyer knew a great deal about criminality. First, though, she had to wait until the love became hatred. Did she have time for that, or would he speak to her superiors about today’s altercation? Wearily, she drove back to the office. One point must be conceded: her first would be Bob Laithwaite.

  Twelve

  ‘I’ve bought us a brand new washing machine,’ Frank said. ‘It’s great. Unusual, but great. It didn’t look right in the middle of the living room or standing in our bedroom, so I stuck it in the kitchen next to the sink.’

  ‘Right. I believe you’ll find that’s probably the best place for it, all things considered. It’s where normal people keep their washing machines.’

  ‘Yes, it seems quite happy where it is now, a neat fit between sink and fridge. It’ll settle down given time, because I had a quiet word with it. Oh, yes, I taught it its position in life.’

  Polly, who was suffering all-day exhaustion due to repeated morning sickness, lay on top of the eiderdown. ‘Good for you. Does it have rubber wringers to get the water out of your clothes?’

  ‘Clothes? What clothes?’

  ‘The clothes you wash in it.’

  ‘Oh, so that’s what it’s for? Hmm, I did wonder, because I had trouble getting into it, and those blade things mangled my feet. An hour and a half, I spent in Accident and Emergency. They said I was very lucky. Insane, but lucky. You see, I thought it was an alternative to having a bath.’

  She awarded him a look fit to flatten a house. ‘It’s a good job I know what a clown you are, or I’d have you locked up. Stop acting the rubber pig, because my sense of humour’s taken a few months off in Blackpool for rest and recuperation. It might not bother coming back at all if you keep being such a nuisance.’

  ‘Well, the damned thing ate my shirts. It’s a Hoover, so perhaps it’s really for floors. Anyway, my poor clothes came out in ribbons, all torn to bits, no buttons and a very odd shade of grey. I must read the book of destructions before I have another go.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Life gets so complicated, doesn’t it? And that Oxydol doesn’t half froth up. I nearly had to man the lifeboats. My whole life flashed in front of my eyes. I put a record on, music right to the end, like they did on the Titanic.’

  In spite of tiredness, she laughed at him. He was clearly determined not to improve. ‘You’re supposed to read the instructions first, love. Don’t make me start giggling again. I’ve breakfasts to face in the morning, and I have to get myself rehydrated by then. I’m going to charge this baby rent with a heavy deposit against damage to the building.’

  ‘How long are you going to be like this?’

  ‘Till my stomach moves south instead of living in my throat.’

  ‘I’m doing your breakfast jobs,’ he told her. ‘You can serve dinners, because you’ve usually stopped throwing up by then. Ida says she’s got help in the shop, and she’ll come in and give you a hand for a couple of hours.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘It’s very good of Ida to offer, Pol.’

  Polly said she didn’t mind Ida giving a hand as long as she didn’t put her foot in it. However, she did mind her Frank neglecting his new business. She sat up. ‘But your shop, sweetheart. Things don’t sell themselves, do they? You can’t just ignore a new business.’

  ‘No matter. As I’ve said before, you come first. Mind, I am a bit confused about all this. You see, most things with moving parts arrive with an instruction manual and a twelve-month guarantee on parts and sometimes on labour. I know, don’t start; I should have read the washing-machine stuff. But you get none of that with a woman. What happens if you seize up or need a change of oil? Where’s your gearbox? If your engine gets flooded or your battery runs down – ouch, that hurt.’

  ‘Thank your stars it’s only a pillow. You never read instructions, anyway.’

  ‘True. Shall I make you some toast?’

  ‘Please, but not much butter.’

  �
��Oh, and I’ve changed my name to George, thought I’d better let you know.’

  Polly offered no reply.

  ‘I killed the dragon.’

  ‘Did you? Well done. But not the toast – I don’t want that well done.’ It was easier to eat food that tasted of nothing. ‘George?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do we have hot water at the flat?’

  ‘Yes. I bought a new dragon. This one came housetrained. It doesn’t even spit.’

  ‘Good. Go and get my toast.’

  Alone, she stretched out again. Life was a little bit out of order, and Frank was worried about something. She hadn’t pretended not to love him for half her life without learning the signs. Too bloody full of jokes and empty laughter, he was. On top of that, she had a life inside her and she’d given up hairdressing. Somebody was coming along tomorrow to buy all her stuff, and she was sad, because she’d been excellent at her job. ‘I’ll be a great mother,’ she said. ‘I can be good at more than one thing.’ Furthermore, this baby would have a brilliant father.

  Downstairs in the kitchen, Cal was making toast for all three of them. Linda was currently at home with her family, and the two men were deep in conversation. ‘Is there a word for the way she is?’ Cal asked.

  ‘I can think of half a dozen,’ Frank answered. ‘Mad, creepy, tenacious, obsessive, bloody nuisance. She’s also as gorgeous as any film star, and she uses her looks to wield power over men. What she doesn’t understand is that most of us want to see a bit of furniture when we look through the windows. I don’t mean she’s thick, far from it, but I think she had her personality surgically removed. I can say in all honesty that I never met anyone like her before.’

  ‘What’s it like being a sex symbol, Frank? She must see something in you. Go on, tell us the secret.’

  ‘Shut up. I’ve got the only woman good enough for me upstairs with heartburn and a bad attitude. I’ve made us a nice enough home in the flat above the shop, and it’ll suit us fine till the baby’s walking. After that, I’ll let the flat and find us a house with a bit of garden. Well, that was the plan till Elaine Lewis turned up like a bad penny. There’s something unreal about her. She’s scary.’

  ‘Hmm. And she’s watching your shop and flat.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Cal buttered the toast. ‘This is Polly’s on the blue plate. Too much butter makes her sick. Elaine Lewis will know you’re not living down Rice Lane now.’

  Frank grinned. ‘Never underestimate your own people, lad. I’ve a neighbour down there who’s seventy if a day, and he sneaks in and messes about with lights and curtains. The wireless works, so he’s got a bit of entertainment, and I’ve told him he can light the fire, but he has to keep checking front and back for a mad woman. As long as I leave him tea, milk, a box of biscuits, coal and kindling, he’s happy to do the job for thirty bob a week. By the time I roll up for work in the morning, little Miss Sunshine will be at her office in the city.’

  ‘What about your car? She’ll see it’s not there now.’

  ‘But it is there. I’m using the shop van. I keep it in a garage nearby.’

  ‘Right. Stick your toast and cocoa on that tray. Oh, and she’ll find out you’re here, by the way. And she’ll soon know you’re expecting a child, which could make matters worse.’

  ‘I’ll let people round here in on the problem by bringing the matter up under any other business at the next Turnpike meeting. They’ll all watch out for her. If she has as much sense as I think she has underneath it all, she’ll not tackle Scotty Road. Even Hitler couldn’t frighten this lot. Ida would have her eyes out, Hattie might clobber her with that rounders bat she keeps for emergencies. And that’s just the women. Yes, she’ll have to watch out if she wants to poke about round here.’

  ‘I agree with that. Some of the women terrify me, Frank.’

  Frank laughed. ‘It has to be just the women; very few Scotland Road men would clobber a female. Are you OK getting yourself to bed now you’ve sacked the attendant, or do you need me?’

  ‘I’m OK, thanks. You see before you an almost upright citizen with a lot less pain. This wedding’s going to be a scream. I’ve to walk Polly up the aisle with Linda’s dad walking her, and after that I swap over and become a bridegroom. Mad. Linda’s funny. She said there’ll be a wheelbarrow in the porch in case my legs go on strike. I asked her what people might think if a man got delivered to his destiny in a wheelbarrow, and she said the alternatives are a general anaesthetic or a shotgun. Too clever for me, is that young woman. Mind, I’ll sort her out once my legs start working full time.’

  Frank carried the tray upstairs, treading softly so that he would hear if Cal fell. But Cal’s mind was so strong and so set that he seldom stumbled. He was ready now for a made-to-measure support for his left leg, while the right needed no help at all. His spectacular progress had been supervised by Linda and Polly, though both insisted that Cal would have made it happen anyway.

  He gave Polly her toast and cocoa.

  She eyed him with distrust. ‘Right, spill the beans,’ she commanded.

  ‘I didn’t do beans, it’s just toast with butter. How’s my son?’

  ‘She’s fine. I’m the one suffering. Sit down and try to behave yourself.’

  He perched on the edge of the bed. ‘Right, here’s what’s happening.’ He gave her an edited version of recent developments, holding back his own fears and his near-certainty that Elaine Lewis might well be criminally insane. ‘She thinks she’s God’s gift, but she’s like an empty diary, no appointments, no events and definitely no friends. She needs a few months in a mental institution.’

  ‘Are you sure she’s the full quid, Frank?’

  ‘Educationally and academically, yes. I reckon her quids are guineas when it comes to her job and knowing stuff. But behaviour-wise, she’s deficient unless it’s business. It’s been embarrassing, believe me. She drives past a couple of times a day, hangs about in her car at night. I might go and see her mother. Though I wouldn’t like to upset Mrs Lewis, because she’s a lovely woman. She’s enough on her plate working for my mother.’

  Polly agreed about Christine Lewis. Although everyone along Frank’s mile had missed him, folk in these parts had grown used to their gentle, pleasant rent collector. ‘Yes, she’s liked round here, though her daughter sounds like one of those psychopaths. So what are you going to do?’

  ‘No idea. She is a lawyer, remember. But she’s got herself mixed up in the Billy Blunt compensation case, said I had to have a meeting with her. I refused, and that was possibly a mistake on my part. I suppose I knocked her off the pedestal she built for herself. Why she fixed her sights on me I’ve no idea.’

  ‘You’re handsome.’

  ‘I know.’

  Polly hit him again. ‘You love yourself, too, so you’re the same as she is.’

  ‘Shut up and drink your cocoa.’ He couldn’t frighten her, mustn’t have her worried, because he was here to protect her. The other bedroom, her salon, would be made into their sitting room, and here they intended to remain until after the birth of their child. His reasons were clear only to himself: he was staying with Pol because a crazy woman might just turn and try to hurt him, his fiancée, and anyone else connected to him.

  He could well be endangering Polly and Cal by being here, but at least he was available and could keep an eye on the outside. The shop van was housed where horses had been kept for a hundred years or more, in stables down the road. His main problem was disturbed sleep. He seemed to have trained himself to wake several times in the night, and he would creep about looking out of back and front windows to check for Elaine Lewis. He should tell someone. Convincing police that a lawyer was crazy could be hard, though Peter Furness might listen.

  ‘What are you thinking about, Frank?’

  ‘How brains can’t stop a person being crazy. Or how brains can make a person crazy. And what if she scares the old man who watches the place for an hour or two every night?’

>   ‘Is she dangerous?’

  ‘I don’t know. I may talk to her mother. If I do, I’ll go softly, because she doesn’t deserve to suffer.’

  After a pause for thought, Polly asked, ‘And Elaine?’

  ‘Needs to be stopped, love. I’ve riled her by not doing whatever it was she wanted. Just keep an eye open for her, eh? While I’m at the shop, be alert.’

  ‘Alert’s my middle name.’

  He sighed dramatically. ‘Some parents have a lot to answer for.’

  She was cold to the bone. A wind had whipped up over the Irish Sea; even the inside of her car was chilled. ‘How did you get here, Elaine?’ she asked herself. The journey from Liverpool to Southport had not registered in her memory. Always, she had been in control. In her job, she needed to be streets ahead, because she was only a woman. ‘Pull yourself together, Lewis.’ She was furious with herself for showing all her cards to Frank Charleson. His refusal to want her had numbed her to the bone, and her thinking processes had been affected, as had her memory. Had she come here along the coastal road or via Lord Street? She had no idea.

  She shuddered when she recalled the visit to his shop. Weakened by desire, she had opened herself to rejection. Her position at work might well be threatened if he reported her for harassment. Frank Charleson was determined to put a stop to her. He was fiercely protective of Polly, and he was fast becoming Elaine’s worst enemy. She needed an ally.

  ‘I have an ally,’ she said.

  Having sidestepped the attentions of Bob Laithwaite for some considerable time, having forbidden him to come anywhere near her home, she now had to do a complete turn, and he must become her first. He was handsome, intelligent, and not as boring as he had first seemed. But she would be breaking her own rules. Sex for pleasure should take place between a woman and a man she desired. Sex within marriage was merely a duty, and Bob was marriage material.

  But her philosophy was already distorted, since she had made the decision that Frank could have fulfilled both roles. What she felt for Frank had to be ignored; what he felt for her must be addressed. She now had to admit to Bob that for personal reasons, she couldn’t work with Frank. Perhaps the new boy might cut his teeth on Mr Charleson?