Footsteps in the Park

by Marie Joseph

  Shaking her head, Dorothy walked on quickly.

  Oh no, there was nothing wrong. She’d only put the cat amongst the pigeons, as Grandpa Bolton would have said. Oh no, nothing wrong. Just that she’d done it this time, done it right and proper. Her fingers curled over the cuff-link down in the patch pocket of her blazer as she walked over to the edge of the pavement, staring down at a grate.

  All she had to do was to drop the cuff-link between the grids, watch it disappear, and the evidence, if evidence it was, would be gone for ever. She teetered on the kerb, swaying slowly backwards and forwards.

  Then she lifted her head and saw Gerald’s red car cruising leisurely down the street towards her.

  ‘Tha’d best come in here, Arnold.’

  Matthew led the way into the lounge, the cosy, chintzy room bright with sunshine, the brasses round the massive cream tiled fireplace a-twinkle with the three monkeys on the mantelpiece shining in three-fold splendour.

  Sergeant Bates, trilby hat still clutched in his hand, sat down on the very edge of the chesterfield, and refused a drink.

  ‘Not when I’m on duty, Matthew, thanks all the same.’

  ‘But surely . . .? Matthew took up his normal stance in front of the fireplace, hands clenched deep inside the cardigan pockets. Pulling it out of shape, as Phyllis would have said.

  The sergeant coughed. ‘The missus?’ he asked.

  ‘In the kitchen.’ Matthew nodded towards the Westminster chime clock. ‘It’s nearly dinner-time.’

  ‘Aye. Well . . .’ Sergeant Bates started to spin his hat round at a feverish rate. ‘This is a helluva spot for us both to be in, Matthew. I’d have given anything, anything, but with you being a pal and everything . . .’ He looked up and sighed. ‘I’ve left the car outside Raymond’s house.’

  Matthew walked over to one of the easy chairs and perched himself awkwardly on the well-padded arm. He couldn’t bring himself to sit down in it properly, not with part of him still straining after Dorothy. Not with part of him picturing Gerald searching the streets at the wheel of his red car. Gerald who . . . oh God!

  ‘Say what tha’s come to say, Arnold.’ Then he forced himself to continue. ‘Tha’s taking him in. I’m right, aren’t I?’

  His solid homely face suffused with colour, the sergeant nodded. ‘Aye, I’m afraid I am, lad.’ He placed the trilby down on the cushion beside him, found he couldn’t manage without it, and picked it up again, examining the brim with a look of intense concentration. ‘I’m sorry, Matthew. Heart sorry I am. This is the hardest thing I’ve had to do ever since I were a bobby on the beat, but we’ve had our eye on him for a bit. Seems he had a bit of a field-day with some of the lasses at the mill when he first came up here.’

  ‘But that doesn’t make him a . . .’ Matthew couldn’t bring himself to say the word.

  ‘No, it doesn’t, but one or two of the things he told us didn’t match up, then this morning, one of your weavers, a big blonde lass, came into the station with her father. Wouldn’t talk to no one but me, so they sent for me. He’d made her come. Practically had to drag her through the streets, he said.’

  ‘Mabel Earnshaw?’

  ‘Aye. How did you know that, then?’

  Matthew put one hand inside his cardigan, and rubbed his chest bone. ‘She was a mate of Ruby Armstrong’s, though I could never see what they saw in one another. One were as brash as t’other were reserved.’

  ‘Aye. Well, it seems that Ruby had confided in the lass, this Mabel. Sworn her to secrecy ’bout three months back. Told her she was meeting Mr Tomlin on the sly. Said her mother would kill her if she found out.’

  ‘She would ’n all.’

  ‘Told her she was meeting him on the night.’ The sergeant coughed and cleared his throat. ‘On the night in question.’

  Matthew got up from the arm of the chair and began to pace backwards and forwards. ‘And she’s kept quiet? It doesn’t seem feasible. I can’t believe that somehow. Can you?’

  Sergeant Bates nodded. ‘Seems Mr Tomlin saw her down at the mill the morning after, and managed to convince her that whilst he had indeed met Ruby, he had left her in the park. Swore it with tears in his eyes apparently, and convinced her that he had nothing to do with that poor lass’s death.’

  He twisted round to face Matthew, who was staring out of the window at the sun-drenched garden. ‘Told her that if she said anything she would lose her job.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Matthew raised his voice. ‘They know they only have to come to me.’ Then he paused. ‘She’s not very bright, Mabel Earnshaw, but she’s the only one working out of a big family. There have been times when I’d have sacked her, but knowing that . . .’

  ‘Exactly. Seems her father’s been out of work for three years, and the only money going into that house is what Mabel earns.’

  ‘Bloody Means Test.’ Matthew shook his head. ‘But I still can’t see how she could have kept quiet.’ He lowered his head. ‘She could have come to me. They allus know they can come to me.’

  Sergeant Bates rubbed the finger and thumb of his right hand together, and Matthew interpreted the gesture at once.

  ‘Blackmail? Oh, dear God in heaven!’

  ‘Empty bellies have a special code of their own, Matthew. Seems one of the children has had consumption and needs proper food and milk. So there were no questions asked at home.’

  ‘The mother. Don’t know what she’s like now, but she used to be a wrong ’un, Arnold. She’d ask no questions.’

  The sergeant sniffed. ‘Aye, they didn’t call her tanner-a-time for nowt. But all the same I believe that lass when she said she doesn’t believe that Mr Tomlin had anything to do with young Ruby Armstrong’s death. “He’s a proper gentleman,” she kept saying over and over again.’

  ‘But you think he did it?’

  It seemed as though his world stood still, as though even the brasses round the fireplace stopped their twinkling as Matthew waited for the sergeant’s reply.

  ‘Arnold! How very nice.’

  Phyllis’s right hand was extended in a smiling welcome, her apron whisked off and held behind her back in deference to her unexpected visitor. Only an extra sharp brittleness in her speech giving away her agitation to her husband. She moved forward into the room. ‘I thought I heard Matthew bringing someone in, but I was busy with the dinner. Just look at you sitting there without a drink in your hand, and this the cocktail hour.’ She laughed nervously. ‘Matthew, what can you be thinking about? And how’s Gertrude? We’re looking forward to seeing you at the wedding . . .’

  ‘Sit down, love.’

  Matthew spoke softly, but in a strange way his voice rang out like a pistol shot.

  ‘I can’t sit down now.’ Phyllis flashed a brilliant smile at the sergeant. ‘You men are all the same. You think a Sunday dinner appears on the table all by itself.’ She walked towards the door, and something in the set of her shoulders told Matthew that she knew. Knew, and didn’t wish to hear. Thought that, by walking away into the shining neatness of her kitchen, the terrible thing that was happening would be restored to pristine oblivion also. He felt behind him for the edge of a chair and sat down. Oh God, in Thy infinite mercy, have pity on her. What she had to hear would kill her, as stone-dead as if someone had fired a bullet straight at her heart.

  He exchanged a glance and a quick nod with the sergeant.

  ‘Phyllis. Come back here, love. There’s something you have to know. Arnold isn’t paying a social call, not this time.’ He ran his tongue over his dry lips. ‘It’s about Gerald, love. Arnold’s come about Gerald.’

  ‘No!’ Phyllis swung round. ‘It’s not true. She’s made it all up, the little sod. She didn’t waste much time running to you, did she? She must have well nigh burst her lungs running to the nearest telephone to spread that muck.’ She stared wild-eyed at the astonished sergeant. ‘And you believe her? You’d take notice of a little lying runt like that?’

  Matthew reached for his wife, and altho
ugh he could have sworn he was shouting, the words he spoke were no more than a whisper:

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with Dorothy, nothing. Listen, for God’s sake. We’ve got to find her, because it looks like Gerald’s gone after her. He suspects that she knows something, and he’s gone after her.’

  Sergeant Bates was at the door in two single strides. ‘You tell me that now, Matthew! For God’s sake, man, let’s get going. Fast.’

  With a tormented backwards glance at his wife, Matthew followed the burly figure of the sergeant out of the house, leaving Phyllis running upstairs, the adrenalin pumping so fast that it seemed her feet scarce touched the stairs. The one thought in her head was to get to Margaret, to hold her, to comfort her, to promise they’d go away, far away, and never come back. Never. Never.

  And as she opened the bedroom door, she saw Margaret sitting serenely in front of her dressing-table, staring calmly at her reflection in the mirror, blue eyes smiling back in tranquil oblivion.

  ‘Mother! I’m sorry. Is dinner ready? I was day-dreaming. Is Gerald back?’

  Phyllis stumbled forward, holding out her arms. Then, as her daughter turned round, she ran back along the wide landing, into the spare room where the white satin wedding-dress hung from the picture-rail, wrapped in its covering sheet. And pulling it down, she tore at the neckline with a strength that was more than human, felt the stitches give, and tore and tore, ripping, scrabbling at the fragile lace.

  Then suddenly, as if pole-axed, she fell backwards on to the floor, eyes and mouth agape, the terrible turn of events for ever obliterated from her mind as she stared unseeing at the ceiling.

  And it was Margaret who telephoned for the ambulance, dialling with trembling fingers, calling in vain for her father, sobbing for Gerald, for Dorothy – for anyone to come quickly. Seeing her whole world turned upside down, her happiness in jeopardy, as she knelt by her mother’s still form and felt for a pulse that seemed to be non-existent.

  ‘Get in!’ Gerald Tomlin held the door of the red sports car open. ‘Come on, you little ninny, I’ll run you home.’ He glanced at his wrist watch, pushing back a cuff to check the time, and Dorothy sighed with relief. Cuffs with buttons, she noticed thankfully.

  He smiled at her. ‘Five past one, and you know what your mother is about meals being on time. Come on. You don’t want me to have to get out and lift you into the car, do you? We’re getting some funny looks from across the street as it is, and it wouldn’t look nice now on a Sunday, would it?’

  Dorothy hesitated. She felt drained, as if someone had inserted a tap in her head and siphoned all her blood away. The anger had gone, evaporated away somehow into the clear blue sky, floating over the tall mill chimneys, and all that was left was a tired and sad bewilderment, and a numbness that the sun could do nothing to alleviate.

  Gerald gave the door of the car an extra push. ‘Well? Are you coming back of your own accord, or do I have to drag you by that golden hair of yours?’ He grinned. ‘Whatever’s troubling you sweetie, don’t let it spoil your dear mother’s Sunday joint. It wouldn’t be cricket now, would it?’

  There was a woman standing at the door across the street eyeing them curiously, her arms folded across her flowered pinafore. Dorothy lifted her head. And the sun was shining, and Gerald Tomlin was the man her sister was going to marry and he might well have been a philanderer, but he couldn’t have done that terrible thing. He was . . . he was a gentleman.

  Sighing, as if somehow it had all been resolved without her having to do anything about it, Dorothy got into the car. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d returned to the house with her tail between her legs. Flouncing out after a difference of opinion with her mother had come to be looked upon as a family joke. Once as a child, she remembered now, half smiling to herself, she had packed a case, squashing her teddy-bear in on top of her favourite book and her pyjamas and a frilly party dress. Then halfway down the road she’d turned back again, taking her place at the table as if nothing had happened.

  ‘That’s better.’ Gerald patted her knee, let in the clutch and drove away from the kerb. ‘Sensible girl. Now why don’t you tell Uncle Gerald what it’s all about? Confession’s good for the soul.’ He laughed shortly. ‘Or so they say.’

  Dorothy glanced at him quickly, but his eyes were on the road, his hands steady on the wheel. He was driving with his usual expertise, concentrating as if he were in a stream of traffic in Regent Street instead of driving down a narrow street with no other cars in sight. Signalling right, he turned into the wide street of Victorian houses, the odd one here and there with striped sun-blinds flapping over closed front doors.

  ‘We’re going the wrong way.’ Dorothy sat up straight in the low seat, the aftermath of shock at her mother’s behaviour leaving her . . . Leaving her with every single nerve in her body alive and quivering. ‘This isn’t the way home, Gerald. You should have turned left, not right.’

  But he made no sign of having heard her, just drove on, away from the west side of the park, away from the wide avenues of red-brick houses, along the almost deserted street. Past a piece of spare land with a group of boys kicking a tin can around, dribbling it from one to another, calling out to each other in high excited voices.

  ‘Get tha skates on, slowcoach!’

  ‘Give us a chance!’

  Dorothy stared at them, wondering what would happen if she called out and screamed for help, then she glanced quickly at the set profile of the man at the wheel. Oh, God, but she was the chump to end all chumps . . . She was the character in the play, who, alone and undefended, went off quite willingly with the prime suspect in a murder case. The stupid character at the end of a novel, who, in the last chapter, took a calculated risk, putting herself in the hands of the villain, as if she alone could solve the mystery. How many times had she groaned and put her library book aside, or switched off the wireless, snorting with disgust? And now, she, of her own volition, had got into a car with a man who, she was sure, knew that she knew far more than was good for her. . . .

  She shivered and clung on to the sides of her seat as the car, coming to the end of the made-up road, bumped and jerked along a rutted path, with a patchwork of allotments stretching away upwards to the left, and a stubbled field on the right sloping down to the deserted playground of a council school.

  And beyond the school, the sprawling panorama of the town: row upon row of terraced houses, with pepper-pot chimneys, curling in curving lines to the cluster of tall mill chimneys pointing sooty fingers up into the clear blue sky. Dorothy turned her head and saw, across the allotments, a long way ahead, the spiral of yellow smoke from a lone bonfire.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Her voice trembled on the verge of lost control. ‘There’s nothing at the end of here but an old quarry – Bill Foot’s Delph . . .’ Her hand covered her mouth to stifle a scream as she visualized the derelict place, supposed to be haunted, the place where, years ago, a tormented man had hurled himself to oblivion.

  ‘Well, Dorothy?’ Gerald suddenly, with a squeal of brakes, brought the red car to a halt by the side of a hen-run, where a cluster of white and scrawny hens, separated from them by a tall wire-mesh fence, bobbed and scratched feverishly at the brown and dusty earth.

  ‘Well, Dorothy?’ Gerald took his hands from the wheel as slowly and lovingly as a concert pianist finishing a concerto. ‘Don’t you think it’s time you told me what this is all about?’

  Already the sun had deepened his fair skin to pink, and the wind had tossed the red quiff of hair from its sculptured perfection so that it lay untidily across his wide forehead. He turned his wet and enquiring gaze full upon her, wide-eyed and questioning, and even in that moment of apprehension she wondered how her sister Margaret could possibly find this man attractive? To her he was repulsive, both in looks and manner, nauseatingly repulsive, and never more than at that minute.

  He was staring bulging eyed at her, holding her glance with his own, willing her to speak out, dari
ng her to keep silent, their mutual dislike flaring like a living flame between them.

  And suddenly Dorothy’s fear left her, and rage rose up in her throat, almost choking her. Suddenly, with a flash of intuition, she knew that this man was the one afraid, not her . . . this man who had come unbidden into their lives, wheedling his way into her father’s respect, flattering her foolish, snobbish mother into total subjection, and stealing Margaret’s heart. Placid, trusting Margaret, who would have believed that black was white, if someone said it firmly enough.

  Their eyes were holding hard. It was a moment of recognition, of putting their cards face down on the ruddy table, as Grandpa Bolton would surely have said. And Dorothy knew what she must do.

  Putting her hand into her blazer pocket, she took out the cuff-link and held it out to him on the palm of her hand, not speaking, just holding it out to him, her eyes still steady on his face.

  He shook his head, bowed it low, then lifted it sharply, the pale eyes narrowing into threatening slits. ‘Where in the name of God did you find it? Tell me, you little interfering sod. Tell me where you found it?’

  And as he snatched it from her, hurling it away from him, so that it cleared the wire-mesh fence, falling amongst the hens who fell upon it with a wild flapping of wings, Dorothy knew that he thought it was the other one. The cuff-link he had lost that rainswept night in the park, and had been searching for ever since. . . .

  And with the realization came the knowledge that she was looking on the panic-stricken face of Ruby Armstrong’s killer.

  There was a fierce heat welling up inside her, coursing through her body and showing itself in tiny beads of sweat on her upper lip. Her teeth were clenched as she said, ‘You did it! You killed that poor girl, and then you dragged her underneath the rhododendron bush and left her lying there. And you went back home, and you went to bed, and you came to our house and you sat at the table and you ate, and you took Margaret to the pictures, and you smiled and smiled . . .’ She was shaking now, clenching her fists to stop herself from raking her finger-nails down his shiny pink cheeks. ‘And you thought you’d have got away with it. Oh, my God!’ She shook her head slowly from side to side. ‘And you’d have married Margaret. Married her with that on your mind . . .’