Tilly's Story

by June Francis

  That night the weather broke; lightning flashed across the sky and thunder rolled. The rain poured down and was accepted by the thirsty earth. Tilly was kept awake by the noise and decided to light the oil lamp and get on with some work. Change was in the air again and she suspected that it was not only for the weather.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Tilly flexed her shoulders and rose from her chair. She went downstairs and out into the garden for some fresh air. October had been a strange old month, she thought, gazing about at the drooping, leafless shrubs and the sodden lawn. After the glorious summer had come the storms. The author Edward Porritt had drowned and his body had been washed up near Fleetwood. Ships had come to grief in the North Sea and, according to Mr Bennett, there had been daring rescues.

  ‘There’s something you could put in a book, Tilly,’ he had said. ‘It would make a good adventure story.’

  ‘Perhaps another time, Mr Bennett,’ she had said, thinking that her novel was not that kind of story.

  Outside the Cunard building at the Pierhead, Lord Derby had unveiled a war memorial to the company dead. Tilly thought of Freddie, who had been a young sailor during the war, and how he could have easily been amongst those it commemorated. The war had changed so many lives. She thought of the uniform button and wished they would hear something from Don. He had not fought in the war but he could have so easily been killed, working as a journalist on the field of battle. Seb might never have been found and she would never have met Don. He was such a caring man and more worthy of her love than Leonard, whom she had not seen since she had told him about her father.

  Suddenly there was a noise behind her and Tilly turned to see Grant Simpson, of all people. But it was his method of entry that gave her a shock for he appeared from up the side of the outhouse.

  ‘Hello, Tilly,’ he said. ‘It’s good to see you’re taking a break.’

  She had received a brief, businesslike letter from him that had acknowledged hers of resignation but she had not seen him for a while. Neither had she seen Wendy, who had been out the few times she had called in at the shop for a bag of sweets. ‘How did you get in?’

  ‘Surely you know there’s a door in the wall behind your little house?’ said Grant.

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course I do,’ said Tilly, puzzled as to why and how he had managed to come in that way. ‘But I’d forgotten. What are you doing using it? I thought it was locked.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t. I thought I’d try it. Do you know there’s been a theft in one of the houses further along and I’m investigating the claim. I’m surprised you haven’t heard about it,’ said Grant.

  Tilly frowned. ‘I’ve been busy writing. If it was mentioned to me, it’s gone in one ear and out the other.’

  He smiled. ‘Too wrapped up in writing your novel, hey?’

  ‘You could say that. May I ask you a couple of questions?’

  ‘Of course you can. But if the first one is about Wendy, I can tell you that her typing is improving and she’s getting a dab hand at disguises. She has a real talent for this work.’

  Tilly smiled. ‘I’m glad I’m not missed.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ said Grant, looking suddenly serious. ‘But I’m not so slow on the uptake that I didn’t realise my advances were unwelcome.’

  ‘It’s not that I don’t like you,’ said Tilly, her cheeks warm. ‘I do. It’s just that I’m fond of someone else.’

  ‘Which one?’ he asked. ‘The American bloke that Wendy mentioned or him next door?’ asked Grant with a jerk of his head in the direction of the dividing wall. ‘You can’t trust him, Tilly. I’ll tell you now,’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘I think he’s involved in some way in the thefts that have been going on.’

  For a moment Tilly was silent and then she said, ‘It’s true I found him attractive but I accept he’s not for me.’ She hesitated. ‘I saw him talking to Mrs Doyle’s brother outside a pawnshop on Scotland Road months ago.’

  Grant drew in his breath with a hiss. ‘You obviously didn’t think fit to tell me or the police – I’m surprised at you, Tilly.’

  Tilly’s cheeks burnt. ‘At the time I thought that perhaps he worked for Leonard in his shipyard. We didn’t know then that Patricia’s uncle was our burglar. Even then, I didn’t want to believe that Leonard could be involved in the robbery in any way. It just didn’t make sense. He can’t need the money. He owns a shipyard for heaven’s sake!’

  Grant’s eyes glinted. ‘Then you were mistaken. I think I’d better be on my way.’

  ‘Wait!’ cried Tilly, putting out a hand to stop him. ‘Tell me what you’re going to do.’

  ‘You know the rules, Tilly,’ he said, removing her hand from his sleeve. ‘You no longer work for me. I suggest you go to the police with this information.’ He disappeared round the back of the outhouse.

  Tilly stood, staring after him, knowing she had been a fool. Grant was right and she was going to have to go to the police and tell them what she had just told him. She would ask to speak to Sergeant Jones and hope he would be sympathetic towards her.

  * * *

  ‘You never mentioned any of this to Mr Parker?’ asked Sergeant Jones, after Tilly had unburdened herself in the interview room.

  ‘No.’ She wished she could sink through the floor. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.’

  He fixed her with a frown. ‘I wish you had, Tilly. You could still be accused of being an accessory after the fact. But maybe you can make up for your mistake. D’you think you can remember which pawnshop it was?’

  ‘Not the name but I could take you there,’ said Tilly, brightening up.

  The sergeant smiled. ‘That’ll do. I just have to make a couple of telephone calls and then you can lead the way.’

  Tilly did just that, and within the hour, she was standing with the sergeant and a plainclothes detective in the exact spot where she had stood when she had seen Leonard and Patricia’s uncle that day.

  ‘Have you any idea where Mr Parker went next?’ asked the detective.

  ‘Yes. Because I followed him,’ said Tilly.

  ‘Good girl,’ said Sergeant Jones. ‘Can you lead the way?’

  Tilly nodded. Unerringly, she took them to the yard she had seen Leonard enter. The men thanked her and told her to go home. Tilly did not have to be told twice and could only hope no charge of being an accessory after the fact would be brought against her. She wanted nothing more than to return to her typewriter and bury herself in her writing.

  That evening, when Tilly came out of the outhouse to go to the lavatory, she heard a voice coming from the other side of the dividing wall.

  ‘Guess what!’ it said.

  Tilly went over to the wall. ‘What?’ she asked, looking up at the woman.

  ‘The police have been here. They asked me lots of questions about Leonard. I think they suspect him of being involved in the burglaries that have been taking place. They searched the house from top to bottom.’

  ‘Did they find anything?’ asked Tilly hesitantly.

  ‘No, but they went round Leonard’s bedroom, dusting for fingerprints.’

  ‘Where is Leonard?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘So they haven’t arrested him?’

  ‘No. They asked if I knew where he was and I told them that I presumed he was at the shipyard. They’ve left a plainclothes man watching the front of the house.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ said Tilly, squirming inside because she had allowed herself to be taken in by Leonard’s handsome face and charming manner. She thought about poor Nanki Poo and Eudora’s heart giving out and her father smashing the car into a tree and dying. These deaths could all be laid at Leonard’s door if he turned out to be the Mr Big behind the robberies. Suddenly she hated him and wanted him brought to justice.

  ‘I don’t know what I’ll do if they arrest him. This is his house. Where will I go?’ asked the woman.

  ‘Couldn’t you just carry on living there
? Perhaps you could take in a lodger or two to help with expenses,’ suggested Tilly.

  ‘Now there’s a thought. I’ll let you know if anything else happens,’ she said, and disappeared.

  Tilly remained where she was for a few moments and then carried on up the garden into the house. She knocked and went inside, expecting to find Joy in the kitchen but she was not there. Instead she heard the strains of a clarinet and realised that Robbie Bennett was either with Pete or one of his pupils. She decided to come back later and tell them what had happened. In the meantime she would do some shopping.

  As she walked along West Derby Road, she could not help wondering what Leonard would do if he knew that she had given information about him to the police. Would he try to harm her? It was as she was returning to the house that she saw Wendy and Joy ahead of her, so, putting on a spurt, she caught up with them.

  ‘I’ve something to tell you both,’ she said.

  ‘If it’s about Leonard Parker being in league with our burglar,’ said Joy, ‘then you don’t have to because Wendy’s been telling me all about it.’

  ‘She has?’ asked Tilly, surprised.

  ‘In fact, she believes he’s the head of a gang of robbers and has been providing them with inside information about the homes he’d been invited to as a guest,’ said Joy.

  ‘Grant doesn’t think he does any of the actual stealing himself but he’s just as guilty as the rest of them in my opinion,’ said Wendy.

  Joy said, ‘Your Aunt Eudora was right about him, wasn’t she?’

  ‘The police have searched his house,’ said Tilly.

  ‘Grant thinks they’re not going to find him and that he’s scarpered with what money and stolen goods he can get his hands on,’ said Wendy.

  ‘Well, if we’ve seen the back of him that’s a relief,’ said Joy. ‘I’d rather he was punished but right now all I can say is good riddance to bad rubbish. I can’t wait to tell Mr Bennett about all this.’

  ‘Well, thank God he’s gone, that’s all I can say,’ said Robbie when they told him the news. ‘Although I hope they find him and he gets his just desserts. I know you had a fancy for him, Tilly, but Eudora always thought that he wasn’t what he appeared.’

  Tilly thought if anyone else repeated Eudora’s words about Leonard to her then she would scream. She needed to be alone and excused herself, then went down the garden and let herself into her small refuge from the world. She unpacked her shopping and decided to indulge herself with fried bread, bacon and egg and a mug of cocoa. As she ate, she thought of Leonard, so that when she sat down at her typewriter, he and the burglaries were very much in her mind.

  She could not remember dozing off but she woke suddenly and banged her face on the typewriter. Her hand caught her pencil holder and the photograph of Don, herself and the children slid beneath the typewriter.

  ‘Hello, Tilly. I hope you don’t mind me visiting you at this time of night?’ said Leonard.

  Tilly’s heart seemed to jerk inside her breast and she blinked up at him in the lamplight. He was perched on the corner of her desk, holding her notes. For a moment she wondered if this was a dream. ‘They said you’d disappeared,’ she murmured. ‘Now you’re here in my dream.’

  ‘No dream, Tilly,’ he murmured. ‘And even if I hadn’t read this, I’d have had to vanish.’ He waved the sheets of paper beneath her nose. ‘How did you know I did it, Tilly?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Tilly, ice seeming to trickle down her spine.

  ‘Come off it!’ His voice was sharp. ‘The American soldier! How did you find out about him? Who’s been talking? I thought I’d got away with it. Was it the old girl who lived here? I heard that Mrs Bennett was a medium, did she go and get in touch? She swore she’d keep quiet. She was fond of me, you know, had watched me grow up. She allowed me to kick a ball around in here, let me dig in her garden and gave me treats. I wasn’t allowed to play in my own garden.’ He frowned. ‘Unless it was my bloody mother Mrs Bennett got in touch with.’

  ‘You killed the soldier?’

  ‘You know I did. It’s all here in your notes!’ He smacked the paper with his fist.

  ‘But I made that up!’

  ‘Don’t try and kid me, Tilly.’ He lowered his head, bringing his face close to hers, so that they almost touched. ‘No one could make all this up. How did you know about my having been left on my uncle’s doorstep in a basket and he and his wife adopting me as their son?’

  ‘I didn’t!’ cried Tilly. ‘Something similar happened to someone else. I admit that some of my story is based on fact, but the baby was not meant to be you, Leonard.’

  He grabbed her shoulder. ‘You’re saying no one will recognise me because you’ve turned me into a character in your book and given me a different name?’

  ‘No!’

  His face darkened. ‘You’re a liar. This character is a bloody murderer and a thief, gets blackmailed and is about to lose everything after falling in love with the heroine. Of course, it’s bloody me! You even have an American detective who was the soldier’s pal during the war.’

  ‘I didn’t intend him to be you,’ said Tilly, her voice trembling. ‘When you say you’re a murderer, do you mean you deliberately killed the soldier?’

  ‘No. My cousin’s death was an accident. His mother had emigrated to America and he was born over there. My uncle and I had a falling out and he threatened to disown me and leave everything to this brave nephew of his who was going off to the Front to fight for England. He even went as far as telling him the truth – and that I was his illegitimate cousin. I knew the truth myself by then,’ said Leonard in an undertone, as if to himself. ‘My real mother, Lily, had turned up and introduced herself. She threatened to let the truth out if I didn’t help her and her gang of thieves by getting information for them.’ He paused. ‘You even used the manner of her murder in the book. She was so confident she had me under her thumb but after accidentally killing my cousin when we both got drunk and had a fight, I found it easier to kill her later when she wanted to come and live with me. I couldn’t have that! She soon realised her mistake.’ He paused again and looked unseeingly out of the window. ‘She didn’t half make a splash when she went in.’

  ‘The pawnbroker!’ whispered Tilly.

  Leonard dropped her notes on the desk and smiled. ‘See, you knew all the time.’ He perched on the desk and stroked her hair. ‘I’m not a killer by nature, Tilly,’ he said seriously. ‘I’d never have killed Nanki Poo. I like animals. But Brendan, now, he hated animals. I can’t tell you how many he killed just for pleasure.’

  Tilly quivered beneath his touch. ‘So, so what are you going to do now? Why did you come here?’

  Leonard gazed into her eyes. ‘Do you really not know, Tilly? You’re the heroine in my story.’

  He took hold of her chin and brought her face close to his and kissed her. She was torn by a mixture of fear, repulsion and a peculiar sympathy for him, and knew she must not recoil.

  When he broke off the kiss, he said, ‘Come with me, Tilly. We can build a new life somewhere else.’ She did not answer but could only look at him. Slowly, the light in his eyes died to be replaced by a harsh expression. ‘The answer is no, isn’t it?’ She was too terrified to speak. ‘You know what I’m going to have to do to you, Tilly, don’t you?’

  ‘Kill me,’ she said through stiff lips.

  He tutted. ‘Don’t you listen to a word I say? I’m not a killer. I’m going to have to tie you up until I get away from here.’

  ‘You know there’s a plainclothes policeman watching the front of the house?’

  He laughed. ‘Of course I do. But thanks for the warning. I came in by the back way. Don’t ask me why they’re not keeping an eye on that. You have some stockings?’

  ‘Yes. In the chest of drawers.’

  ‘Now, don’t move because I don’t want to hurt you,’ warned Leonard.

  Tilly did not want him to hurt her and, besides, she knew t
hat she’d never make it down the stairs before he caught up with her. She struggled when he tied her up with her best silk stockings and then he stood, gazing down at her. ‘I’m sorry about this, Tilly, but I’ve got to do it.’

  She watched in horror as he tore up her notes and the typewritten pages of her novel. ‘You swine!’ she cried.

  He tutted. ‘Not a nice name to call me, Tilly.’ He bent over and kissed her. ‘Goodbye.’

  Tilly watched him walk away. ‘Where are you going?’ she called.

  ‘Now, that’s my secret, Tilly,’ he said, and disappeared from her sight.

  It was a long night for Tilly because however hard she struggled she could not free herself. She shouted until she was hoarse but no one came, and she was getting colder and thirstier and was desperate for the lavatory. She cursed Leonard Parker.

  Joy found her the following morning when she came down the garden, carrying a letter. Tilly heard her climb the stairs and call out, ‘Are you there, Tilly? We thought you might have called in for a cuppa by now.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tilly huskily. ‘Thank God you’ve come.’

  Joy appeared at the top of the stairs and stared at the paper, torn small enough to appear like confetti, scattered all over the floor. Then she looked at Tilly. ‘Oh, my God, what’s happened?’ She hurried over to her. ‘Has Leonard Parker been here?’

  ‘Yes! Untie me.’

  As soon as Tilly was free, she bent over her desk and pulled open the bottom drawer. She took out the carbon copy of her novel so far and hugged it to her.

  ‘Thank God he didn’t kill you,’ said Joy, staring at her.

  Tilly nodded, moving away from her desk and stumbling across the floor, still holding the carbon copy. ‘I don’t think he suspected me of informing on him to the police. It was what I’d written in my notes for my book that caused him to do this.’

  ‘At least he didn’t harm you,’ said Joy.

  ‘No. But I’m going to have to retype everything I’ve done so far, although, having said that, I’m going to have to alter a few things.’