by Lynda Paige
Gem said worriedly, ‘Oh, Solly, what if Sonny doesn’t come back? That man has given us no choice but to work for him. We’ll be living the rest of our lives worrying every second of the day that somehow the police will find out what we’re doing and we’ll end up in jail. But I’ve got an awful feeling that even if Sonny did came back with the package unopened, that man will still find a way to make us work for him.’ She started to cry and blubbered, ‘What are we going to do, Solly?’
He looked helplessly at her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The day of Sam’s funeral was a glorious one. A warm early October sun shone down from a bright blue sky, fluffy cotton-wool-looking clouds slowly drifting across it like little sailing ships on a vast ocean. The small church on the outskirts of Hexham was packed with many more fairfolk than either Solly or Gem had been expecting, nearer three hundred to their two. Many were old friends, some distant relatives Sam himself had believed long-ago dead but just the news hadn’t reached him; some were people that felt they owed him a debt of gratitude for a past good deed he had done them and a handful just saw Sam’s funeral an excuse for a day out with a decent feed and drink at the end of it. Most turned up in their own living vans, starting to arrive late afternoon the day before. Finding space for them all to park was an absolute nightmare. They ended up packed together like sardines in a tin, the rest having to park on nearby waste ground.
The church service was a very dignified affair, a moving tribute to the well-respected man they had come to bury. Many times the vicar had to raise his voice to be heard over the sobbing women; Sam had been quite the ladies’ man before he had settled down with his beloved Nell. Solly’s eulogy had taken him, along with help from Gem, many hours to compose in his effort to honour a man he felt so very fortune to have been his father. The wake afterwards, in a large hall not far from the church, although starting off very sombrely, as soon as the drink began to flow turned into a raucous affair. The last of the mourners had to be ordered off the premises after twelve o’clock at night so the staff could lock up and go home. The absence of Sonny was a huge talking point amongst the mourners but most seemed to accept Solly’s excuse that Sonny was so grief-struck by his father’s unexpected death that he couldn’t face the funeral and had gone away for a few days.
Despite coping with their own painful emotions, not for one second of that day was it far from Gem and Solly’s mind the dire situation they had found themselves in. Neither had come up with any way of finding a way out for them. As they only had two days left before the man returned, they didn’t have much hope left that they would and worried that, for the rest of their lives, they would be blackmailed into carrying out illegal work for him. Keeping themselves acting as they normally would in front of their sons, friends and the rest of the community took them every effort. Neither did they feel it right to take any into their confidence. Not even Velda, who Gem confided all her problems in.
* * *
It might have been the consumption of drink she had had at the wake but more than likely it was the great amount of pressure she was under that caused Gem to have very little sleep that night. Although Solly was snoring gently beside her, she knew he’d not had much sleep either for the same reason. He had probably not long finally dropped off, in fact.
It was still dark when she awoke the next morning, too dark for her to see the hands of the bedside clock but she judged it to be about six. Knowing she wouldn’t get back to sleep she decided to get up and have a cup of tea. She would shortly have needed to be up and about anyway, as very soon people that had travelled to the wake and stayed overnight would be setting off on their journey back to where they had come from and would be expecting her and Solly to be waving them off.
The bed filled the whole space at the front of the van and to get in and out, both she and Solly had to get on at the bottom of the bed and crawl up to the top. Not wanting to wake Solly, she carefully eased the covers aside then, sitting up and bending her legs, eased herself as gently as she could down to the bottom of the bed. At the bottom of the bed she stood up and began to grope her way to the curtain at the entrance and slip through the into the small corridor, where one side was the boys’ shared bedroom, the other their bathroom, when she remembered that, due to the lateness of the hour and the inebriated state they were all in last night when they got home, no late-night chores were attended to so there was no fresh water to make the cup of tea with. She would have to go and fetch a bucket from the water pump the council had temporarily erected for them. Which meant she needed to get dressed.
Turning to her right, she groped her way the few steps to her own wardrobe, pulling aside the protective curtain and then felt about for clothes to wear, letting her fingertips tell her which each hanging garment or folded one on the shelves running down the side was that she was feeling. Having found a pair of slacks and a warm jumper, as the mornings were now decisively chilly, as she turned to move away from the wardrobe back further into the room to put them on, her foot caught the side of one of her wellington boots and it toppled over. She realised something had fallen out by the slight thud she heard it make as whatever it was landed on the wooden floor close by. She wondered what it was? As it was too dark to see, she got down on her knees and felt around. Finally her fingertips touched a small package covered in something waxy. She picked it up. The waxy covering was actually oilskin. She frowned in thought. At times she did use various places to hide presents from her family so they wouldn’t find them before she was ready to give it to them but she couldn’t remember wrapping anything small up in oilskin and putting it inside one of her wellington boots for safekeeping. So if it wasn’t her package, then whose was it? Then just whose it must be made her mouth drop open in shock, eyes bulging wide. This must be the package Sonny had been keeping for that odious man. What else could it be? How had it come to be inside her wellington boot though?
‘Solly,’ she called out in hushed tones so as not to wake her sons. ‘Solly. Solly! Wake up. Wake up right now!’
A short while later, both were sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table, their arms resting on top of it. Both were leaning forward, their eyes fixed on the small oilskin-wrapped package that sat in the middle. There was no label on it, nothing whatsoever at all to indicate who it belonged to or of what was inside.
After what seemed an age, Gem finally said, ‘Do you think it is the package the man is after, Solly? It doesn’t look big enough to hold anything that would be worth fifty thousands pounds in it to me.’
He took a deep breath then slowly exhaled it before he answered her, ‘Well, it’s not mine and you say it’s not yours, and the man did describe a small package and this is a small package, isn’t it? It has to be, doesn’t it? Don’t ask me how it got in your welly boot, because I have…’ He stopped short as a realisation then flooded to mind. ‘Oh, so that’s what he was really looking for under our bed. Not Dad’s will, but this package. That’s where he’s been hiding whatever he has for that man. In our hidey-hole. Perfect place, isn’t it? How rare is it that we ever have a need to go in there ourselves. It’s you that mainly uses it to store things in there that you don’t use any longer but are not willing to part with. Maybe when Sonny collected the package to hand it over to whoever came to collect it, in his haste to get in and out without one of us catching him, he couldn’t have put it in his pocket properly and it dropped out into your boot as he was putting everything back in place. When the package wasn’t in his pocket when he went back to his van to hand it over to the man, Sonny must have thought that it had fallen back into the hidey-hole as he was tidying up after himself so we wouldn’t know someone had been in there. It wasn’t that Sonny needed more time to hand over the package because he was planning to steal it himself after finding out how much what was inside was worth, it was because he needed more time to get us out of the way so he could get it back out of the hidey-hole where he thought he had dropped it. That must be it, it’s got t
o be.’
She gawped. ‘But what if the police had discovered that Sonny was hiding stuff for that gangster and found whatever it was under our bed? The police would have assumed that we were in on it. How could Sonny do that to us?’
Face grim, Solly shook his head. ‘I’m beginning to wonder just what Sonny is capable of.’
‘Well at least we can hand it over to the man on Saturday and he’ll know that Sonny didn’t run off with the package but really did mislay it so he didn’t double-cross him after all. And he won’t be looking to us to replace what he’d thought Sonny had stolen off him either.’
‘Yes, that’s a huge relief, I have to say. He then heaved a worried sigh. ‘But as you said before, it doesn’t mean he’s not going to find another way to blackmail us into replacing Sonny somehow. A man like him doesn’t give up a good thing easily.’
Gem’s shoulders sagged in despair. ‘No, no, he didn’t come across to me like a man that would.’
They both lapsed into silence, each lost in their own troubling thoughts. Then snatching up the package and stuffing it into his pocket, Solly scraped back his chair and jumped up. ‘The boys are getting up. I need to go out and I don’t know how long I’ll be.’
She frowned at him. ‘Where are you going at this time in the morning?’
He went to her, leaned over and kissed the top of her head. ‘I think I’ve thought of a way to get us out of this situation. I’ll tell you everything when I get back.’
‘Solly, don’t you dare leave me in suspense. Solly!’
But he was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Saturday evening at just before ten o’clock found a highly charged Solly sitting in his armchair by the log burner, drumming anxious fingers on both arms, whilst constantly uncrossing, then re-crossing his legs. The man had said he would be back Saturday evening and to Solly it was now Saturday night, so where was he? He was desperate to get what he was about to do over and done with so he could put Gem out of her misery. She hadn’t been at all happy that he had insisted he face those brutes alone. If this all went wrong and matters turned ugly, as there was a great possibility that it would, he would never forgive himself if she got hurt. Then he finally heard the thud of feet ascending the outside steps and fought to look calm and composed before his visitors arrived.
Then there they were, both walking into his van like they owned the place.
Solly went to speak but was silenced by the smaller of the two holding up his hand in warning as, simultaneously, he indicated by a nod of his head for his companion to have a search around the whole van first to check that Solly was indeed on his own like he had warned him to be.
The man first checked the kitchen, a quick glance telling him that there was nowhere possible for anyone to conceal themselves, didn’t bother with the living area as it was apparent that they were the only ones in there, then lifted the side of the curtain splitting the living room from what lay beyond and moved out of view. He returned, minutes later, to inform his boss with just a nod of his head that the three of them were the only ones present in the van.
As the man then sat himself down in Gem’s armchair opposite Sonny, his companion standing at the back of it, Solly again went to speak but was again silenced by a warning hand. ‘Short memory it seems you have, Mr Grundy. I told you I don’t talk business without a drink in my hand. How I do hate having to repeat myself because people don’t listen. Jonathon, do the honours.’
The man now having a drink in his hand, in his need to get this over with, Solly couldn’t hold his tongue any longer and blurted, ‘You’ll be glad to know I found the package. It was in my brother’s van behind the clock on the mantle above his wood stove. I can’t believe he forgot where he’d put it when your chap called to collect it, but obviously he did. It’s not been opened. Anyway, at least you know he didn’t double-cross you so he’s in the clear.’
If the man was pleased to hear this, he didn’t show it. Stonily he responded, ‘I’ll believe it when I see it.’
Solly immediately jumped up, saying, ‘I’ll fetch it. Won’t be a moment. It’s in my bedroom.’
The man told his companion. ‘Go with him.’
‘You don’t trust me,’ Solly said as though he was offended, although he’d been expecting this would happen.
‘Only a fool trusts anyone but himself. I would have thought that you would realise by now that I’m not a fool.’
The big man followed closely behind Solly as he slipped under the curtain and made his way into the bedroom. The pair of them together almost filled the small space at the bottom of the bed. Solly said to the man, ‘The package is in my wardrobe behind you, so if you don’t mind moving aside so I can get it?’
The man moved aside and Solly squeezed past him to retrieve the package from where he had put it earlier; in the middle of a pile of his jumpers. Having got what they came for, they then both returned to the living area. Solly handed the man the package then, without a word, re-took his seat opposite; the man’s companion again resumed his position at the back of his boss’s chair.
Without a word, the man took a ornate pearl-handled penknife out of his coat pocket, flicked open the blade and proceeded to slit open the package. Sonny was itching to know what was inside that could be worth so much money, but by the way the man was holding it as he inspected the contents, to his disappointment he couldn’t see what it was.
Finally the man seemed satisfied all was present and correct and stuffed the package into his coat pocket. He took a sip of his drink first before he said, ‘It seems I was wrong about your brother after all.’
Solly made to rise. ‘Good. Well if that’s all, I’ll see—’
‘Sit down,’ the man ordered him. ‘It’s me that tells you when I’m ready to leave.’ Solly instantly dropped back down into his seat again. The man again took a sip of his drink before he spoke. ‘This arrangement I had with your brother. Just because he’s not around any longer, doesn’t mean I don’t see any reason why you can’t take his place. Same terms as I had with him. I think you’ll find I’m very generous with my employees. Your brother was more than happy with what I paid him.’
Solly took a deep breath in an effort to calm his jangling nerves before he responded, ‘My brother might have been happy with your arrangement, but I’m not my brother and I’m not interested in working for you.’
The man smiled at him, but it was certainly not a friendly one. ‘Not your decision to make. |You must have realised by now that I am the sort of man that if he wants something he gets it.’ His eyes darkened menacingly then and he leaned forward to fix his cold, hard eyes on Solly’s. ‘Accidents happen, don’t they? Be such a shame if a fire started where all your living vans are when everyone is asleep. Jonathon would take great delight in helping to get it going. He’s a fetish for setting fires. In fact he has been in jail several times, for arson. Horrible way to die, I should imagine, being burnt to death. Excruciatingly painful and takes a long time too, I should think. And fire spreads quickly too. Before a fire engine could get here, the whole fair is ablaze. And even if you and your family did manage to survive, how are you going to support them with no fair? And not just you, but all those other people that might survive the fire that work for you?’
Solly held up his hands and urgently blurted, ‘Okay. Okay. I get the message. I’ll do what you want.’
The man smiled. ‘Good. Glad to see you’re not stupid after all. Well, I hope this is the last time I need to call on you in person now that we’ve got things straight between us. It’ll be one of my employees that you’ll be dealing with from now on. In future you won’t know when anyone will call on you, it could be any day, but I can tell you that you can expect someone next Tuesday to drop your first package off .’
‘Oh, is that when your next job is planned, Mr Morrison? I would be most interested in hearing the details so I can have a welcoming committee waiting for you.’
At the unexpected sound of
a strange voice in the room, the man in the chair jumped up to spin around to face the direction the voice came from. His companion spun around too whilst reaching into his inside pocket in an attempt to pull out the gun he had secreted there. He quickly pulled his hand back out on seeing the barrels from two other guns aimed at him.
‘Where the fuck did you two come from? Jonathon scoured the place when we first came in and no one else but us three were in this van.’
‘I did, Bossman, honestly. I searched everywhere and there was nowhere anyone could hide themselves, except for inside the two wardrobes in the bedroom at the front and there was no one in there when I looked. I made sure all the windows were locked shut too while I was at it so no one could climb in them while we was in here.’
The shorter and older of the two newcomers chuckled, ‘Well, that will certainly give you something to puzzle over while you’re serving at least twenty years at Her Majesty’s pleasure, won’t it, Mr Morrison?’ Still aiming his gun at him, he walked over to stand next to him. He put his hand in his coat pocket, pulling it back out along with the package Morrison had not long put in there. Knowing his colleague still had his gun trained on the two thugs, he put his own in his pocket and, using both hands, eased open the slit that Morrison had made in it so he could inspect what was hidden inside. At least a dozen clear stones in varying shapes and sizes glittered back at him. He nodded his head several times in satisfaction before he said, ‘We always suspected you were behind the robbery of the courier from Holland who was delivering these stones on behalf of his firm to the buyer in Leeds four weeks ago, but we couldn’t get enough evidence to prove it. Now we have and you will finally get what you deserve.’ He pushed his face into Morrison’s and angrily hissed at him, ‘That courier, by the way, is still in hospital recovering from what one of your thugs did to him. And I suspect we’ll get more evidence once we get a warrant to search your house and office. I don’t think it will take much to get matey here singing to us about what he knows about your set-up, either. A promise of some paper and a box of matches to play with should do the trick from what I overheard.’ Two other constables then arrived, having been signalled to by Solly that the coast was clear by him opening the curtains, as had been prearranged for him to do. ‘Help Sergeant Jones cuff these bastards and get them out of my sight.’