Ignoring this, Sarah turned her attention back to Hannah. ‘I need to gather the evidence.’ Looking at Nance again, she asked, ‘Were you present at the so-called marriage?’
‘No.’
Hannah said, ‘There were only men there. About twelve of them.’
‘It’s not just the wedding. I want to find out everything I possibly can to incriminate your father. I want him to be taken somewhere he’ll not be able to harm you and Judith.’
‘If you need a witness to him assaulting Hannah, then I’m your woman. He’s a piece of work, Charles Dawson. The most violent man I ever came across.’
Hannah sighed inwardly. It was all coming out.
‘You know him?’ Sarah frowned.
‘Oh yes. I was on the receiving end of his nasty violent tendencies. None of the girls would go with him by the end. He got banned. And believe me that takes some doing.’
If Sarah was shocked, she hid it well. Curling her lip at Nance, she turned to Hannah, and said, ‘Didn’t you say you had suspicions about what was going on at Morton’s?’
‘There was more money going out than there should have been. I couldn’t get to the bottom of it. I tried to check one of the invoices. It was to a firm that doesn’t exist and was for over £40. Merseyside Maritime Services.’
Nance laughed. ‘Well, I can help you with that, ladies.’ She looked pleased with herself. ‘Lots of the gentlemen attending the establishment I used to be part of liked to hide their expenditure there from their wives – and use it to offset their taxes as well probably. They wanted invoices. We had them made out from Merseyside Maritime Services as that was a believable name for a creditor for most of our clientele. Clever, eh?’
‘You’re saying that my husband spent money on prostitutes and paid for it through our family business?’
‘I certainly am.’ Nance winked at her.
‘Are you willing to testify to this?’
‘No. That I’m not. I’d do it gladly to help bang up your rotten husband, but there are a lot of decent enough men who’d risk getting dragged in too. Men who’ve done nothing wrong except try to keep things private. Most of my clients were family men who just weren’t getting it from their wives. Nothing wrong with that. We were providing a public service.’ Nance glanced up at the clock on the wall. ‘Now, Mrs Dawson, I hate to break up your reunion with your daughter, but it’s time you scarpered. The old man will be home soon and he’s not going to be pleased to find you here.’
Hannah threw a look of appeal at Nance. ‘Please give us five minutes alone.’
‘As long as you don’t think about doing a runner. If you disappear I’m the one will get it in the neck. You may not realise which side your bread’s buttered on, but I certainly know mine. You can have five minutes then I’ll open the door.’ She locked the back door.
When she’d left the room, Hannah hugged her mother. ‘I’m so sorry you had to hear all that, Mother.’
‘It’s not you who should be sorry, my darling. It’s me. I’m the one who let you get caught up in all this. Now, are you absolutely sure you’re all right living here, with that creature?’
‘Nance is all right. She’s been kind to me.’
‘I’m not resting until I’ve got you safely home again and your father where he should be. Behind bars. It’s just going to take me a bit longer than I’d hoped. Especially if she won’t help.’
‘Don’t worry about me. I’m fine here. Father won’t come back. Nance nearly brained him with that poker.’
Sarah smiled. ‘I imagine that was a sight to behold.’
‘He was snivelling. Like a frightened child.’ She squeezed her mother. ‘That was when I realised he’s just a pathetic coward.’
‘Most bullies are.’
‘You will come again, Mother?’
‘I’ll try. But I don’t want to raise his suspicions. I only managed to come today as he’s in Manchester. It’s a meeting with one of our last remaining customers. I wouldn’t be surprised if that one’s going the way of the others.’
‘As bad as that?’
‘I had a chat with Mr Busby. He says sales have dwindled to a trickle. He showed me a letter from a longstanding customer cancelling their account. Uncompetitive pricing and poor service according to the letter.’
‘Mr Busby told you that? Whenever I tried to ask him anything he said it was none of my business and told me to ask Father.’
Sarah stroked her hair. ‘I’ve known Mr Busby since my papa was running the business. Since I was a child. Now I must go before that harridan flings me out of the door. We must be patient, my lovely girl.’
Chapter Twenty-Five
Most of the crew aboard the Christina were different from those who had sailed into the port of Liverpool back in March. The majority had signed articles for other ships during the Christina’s long layover. Fred, the second mate, along with the chief engineer, had signed up again, and Will was also pleased to see Abuchi, and one or two others. Although he would miss Eddie and the O’Connors he had no regrets about walking away from the Irish crossings.
He had stowed his kit bag in his cabin and was heading up the companion way when he bumped into Mr Palmer.
The master gave him a clap on the back. ‘Good to see you, Kidd. How did you like Dublin? Quite a change doing those short hops.’
‘It was a bit of a deck chair job, sir – apart from the cattle.’
The master gave a wry smile. ‘Ah yes. I forgot about that. We don’t go to sea to become farmers, do we son?’
Will grinned. ‘Cattle’s no fun in a rough sea.’
‘All good experience, man. You studying hard?’
Will thought of lying but decided to tell the truth. ‘To be honest, sir, I got a bit distracted while I was in Liverpool. But I’ll be working hard now I’m back on the Christina. I’m determined to get my mate’s ticket.’
Palmer chuckled. ‘A woman, I’ll bet. Serious?’
‘It didn’t work out.’
‘Sorry to hear that. It’s good for a man to have a woman to come home to. But then I suppose I’ve always thought of you as a “blue water man”, so perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. There are some men who are never happy unless they’re at sea and as far away from home as possible.’
Will nodded agreement, while thinking that whilst once that might have been true of him, he’d give up the sea in a heartbeat if it meant he could be with Hannah again.
The master narrowed his eyes. ‘I’ve been talking with the first and second mate, and as you know, we need a new bosun. I’d like you to take the job, Kidd. You ready for that?’
Just a couple of months ago, Will would have been delighted but now he had to force a smile. More money – but for what?
* * *
After calling at Casablanca and Tenerife, the Christina had an uninterrupted run down to Dakar in Senegal and from there a series of trips back and forth bouncing between various west African ports such as Lagos and Accra. This part of Africa wasn’t popular with the crew. The countries they visited were poor, the towns shabby, the atmosphere hot and humid, so most of the crew were happy to see Table Mountain at last. After several days in port in Cape Town – always a crew’s favourite – they would be collecting and discharging cargo up and down the east coast of Africa, going wherever the loads were.
It was as they docked in Cape Town that news of Prime Minister Chamberlain’s momentous meeting with Hitler in Munich reached them. Cheers went up among the crew with relief that the once imminent outbreak of war had been forestalled. ‘Peace for our times’ was a far better alternative than getting sucked into a war just twenty years after the end of the last one. The men aboard the Christina were all too aware that should war have been declared their lives would have changed radically.
In particular, Paolo Tornabene was relieved to hear the news. If war had broken out it wasn’t too hard to imagine which side Italy would be on. Chamberlain and Mussolini had recently signed another treaty in w
hich Britain conceded Italy’s right to Ethiopia on condition that Italian troops left Spain – but what was that in the face of Mussolini’s continuing courtship of the German Chancellor?
Will spent most of his time studying for his mate’s ticket. After so many years at sea, much of the syllabus was already familiar to him, but he found his concentration frequently wandering and always in the same direction. He couldn’t get Hannah out of his mind. Whenever the distraction proved too much, he would take the now well-thumbed envelope out of his locker and re-read her words in an attempt to drum into his head that she didn’t care for him. Constantly thinking about her was fruitless.
Hannah couldn’t have loved him. It had all been a lie. Otherwise she couldn’t have reconciled herself so quickly to marrying someone else. Even if Sam Henderson was a remarkable man, it was such a rapid turnaround in her affections that it was hard for Will to accept. It just didn’t make sense. Every time he tried to push the image and memory of her away, her face was there in front of him: her eyes gazing deep into his, the remembered feel of her mouth on his, the love shining from every pore of her. He saw her face in the cloud formations above, in the shimmering water of the ocean, in the patterns on his retina when he closed his eyes.
Could she really be such an accomplished actress? So fickle in her affections? If she’d cared nothing, why had she led him along? Had he done something to make her suddenly change her feelings for him?
All this self-torture was leading nowhere. He had to forget her and get on with studying tide tables and navigational charts.
Paolo too was finding the voyage hard. He never spoke again of his grief over Loretta, but Will often saw him staring blankly into space, gazing out across the empty sea, lost in thought. Neither of them needed nor wanted to tell the other any of this, but there was an unspoken bond between them. When the other crew members went off to explore the local attractions in each port, the two friends tended to stay on board, Will studying, and Paolo reading or writing to his family. Occasionally, they ventured ashore for a few beers or some local food but avoided the fleshpots of the ports they visited.
Christmas 1938 was spent on board, at sea between Durban and Lourenço Marques in Mozambique. The cuisine on this voyage was significantly poorer than on their previous African roundtrip. They had taken on a new cook in Liverpool who had a tendency to drink and a heavy hand with the salt. The meals on board were known by the crew in the common merchant naval parlance as ‘chew and spew’. In Durban, the offending cook had failed to return on board, presumably having fallen down drunk in a bar somewhere. The master had no hesitation in setting sail without him – leaving him to find his own way home to England as a DBS, a distressed British seaman. To replace him, one of the assistant cooks, a Lascar, was promoted to head cook to the delight of the crew, thus ensuring that their Christmas festivities, such as they were, would not be impaired. Food was the last thing on Will’s mind. The hilarity of the crew as they enjoyed extra rations of rum and beer was like a mockery to him. As they sang Christmas carols in a tropical rain storm, he imagined the rainy streets of Liverpool, the cold winter temperatures, fir trees lit up with fairy lights and families gathered around coal fires.
* * *
They had been away from Liverpool for seven months when they sailed into Zanzibar in early January. It was their first call there on this voyage.
‘Let’s go to Rafqa’s,’ Will said to Paolo.
The Italian looked at him with astonishment. ‘You want to see Rafqa?’
‘Why not?’ said Will. ‘Enough studying. Enough misery. It’s 1939 and we’ve avoided a war. Rafqa’s food is the best in east Africa and I feel like getting drunk.’
‘Is that all you feel like?’
‘Well, I can’t live like a monk for ever, can I?’
Paolo shrugged. ‘Maybe you’re right, Mr Bosun, perhaps that’s what you need.’
‘What about you?’
Paolo shook his head.
‘Come on! At least come for a meal and a few drinks. There’s always a good band playing at Rafqa’s. We both need cheering up.’ Will hoped his forced jollity rang truer to Paolo than it sounded to himself.
The friends, along with Fred and Abuchi, headed through Stone Town to Rafqa’s. As usual, the bar-café was packed with people, the air smoky, and the music lively. They found a table at the rear and ordered drinks. There was no sign of Rafqa.
After several beers and a spicy Lebanese fish stew, the second mate suggested a change of venue. ‘Some of the lads were heading to a bar that’s just opened near the quayside. How about we give it a go? We can always come back here later if it’s not up to much.’
There was general agreement, but Will said he was staying here for a while. ‘I might wander over there later, lads.’
Paolo voiced his doubt at Will. ‘Non penso.’ He gave Will a departing wink.
Will called the waiter to bring him some rum. There was no rush to get back to the ship as they were not leaving port for another day or so. With still no sign of Rafqa, he leaned back in his chair and listened to the band. They were performing with a female singer, an African woman, who was singing in French. The nature of the music had changed, with the upbeat swing jazz replaced by a haunting ballad. Will couldn’t understand the words of the song, but the sentiment was unmistakable.
‘J’attendrai
Le jour et la nuit, j’attendrai toujours
Ton retour.’
He let the sad and soulful music wash over him and tried not to think about Hannah.
After nearly half an hour had passed, Will was about to give up the wait for Rafqa, when the curtain at the back of the room parted and the German he recognised from a year ago, emerged. As Will knew all too well, the only place that curtain led to was the stairway to Rafqa’s private apartment. The sudden twinge of jealousy caught him by surprise. The man walked past without giving Will a glance and went straight out of the building through the main door at the front.
Some minutes later, the beaded curtain parted, and Rafqa came in. She passed between the tables en route to the bar without seeing him. Will took advantage of this opportunity to watch her closely. Behind the smiles and greetings she offered to customers, she looked anxious, with a tired look playing about her eyes and a slight downturn of her mouth. She was still beautiful – an exotic beauty, with dark eyes and rich black hair and Will felt a little surge of desire.
He drained his glass and was about to move to the bar, when she lifted her head and saw him. She threw him the merest hint of a smile, communicating through her eyes while her mouth remained set. She held an open palm towards him, behind her back, the five fingers splayed, while continuing her conversation with Bebe, the barman. Then without looking again at Will, she disappeared back through the curtain.
Will waited the five minutes as instructed, then leaving the cash for his drink on the table, he took advantage of a burst of applause for the band, to slip through the curtain and climb the stairs after her.
She was waiting in her room, but this time she wasn’t naked. Wearing a green silk evening gown, elegant in its simplicity, she was standing by the window, a glass of wine in her hand, staring out over the moonlit rooftops of the city. Beneath them the faint sound of a plaintive saxophone solo drifted upwards.
How long ago it seemed since the last time they had stood here in this room together. A year that felt more like an eternity. Rafqa turned to face him, her expression unsmiling. ‘It’s been a while, William. I had a feeling I wouldn’t see you again.’
Will said nothing, but moved towards her.
She crossed over to a side table where there was an open bottle of wine. ‘I can go down to fetch you something stronger if you prefer,’ she said, holding up the bottle.
He noticed it was already half empty. Glancing behind him, he saw there was another glass on the drainboard beside the tiny sink. He couldn’t help looking towards the bed, but it looked neat and unruffled. Perhaps she had remade it.
>
‘Wine’s fine,’ he said, taking the glass from her and moving over to sit in the window seat. ‘Why didn’t you think I’d be back?’
‘I don’t know. Just a feeling. Female intuition.’
He wanted to ask her about the man, but he suppressed the urge. Better not to know. And anyway, he had no right to ask. Rafqa owed him nothing.
But she seemed to guess what he was thinking. ‘You saw my friend leaving?’
‘Yes. The German I saw you with last time. The one you pretended not to know.’
‘Why do you say that?’ She frowned.
‘Because you denied talking to him when I asked you that night.’
‘Yes, I lied to you. I was being careful.’ She looked at him with a steady gaze.
‘So, you and he—’
‘Had business to discuss. He came up here tonight so we could speak in private.’
Will shrugged. ‘You don’t have to explain to me, Rafqa. I’m just someone who sails into town once in a blue moon. You owe me nothing. Just because we’ve slept together a few times—’
‘Don’t! Don’t say things like that, William. I thought we had more respect for each other. You know I don’t have casual relationships.’
‘I didn’t say it was casual.’
‘I don’t have any relationships. I made an exception for you. Perhaps I shouldn’t have done.’
Will smiled at her, feeling suddenly very sad. ‘I should go.’
She touched his arm. ‘Don’t go. I don’t want you to go. There’s nothing between me and that man. Just business.’
He pulled her towards him, kissed the top of her head, ran his hands over her hair then drew her against his chest. ‘Oh, Rafqa, Rafqa.’ It was like a sigh.
Rafqa looked up at him, her eyes fixed on his. ‘You’re different, William. Something’s changed in you.’ She cradled his cheek in one palm, still watching him intently. ‘I think you have fallen in love. I can see it in your eyes. Sadly, not with me.’ She gave a little bitter laugh, then smiled. ‘But you are sad. You have been hurt.’ She stood on her toes and kissed him softly in the middle of his forehead. ‘My poor, dear William.’
Storms Gather Between Us Page 27