The Quality Street Girls, page 24
‘Reenie!’ Mrs Calder put down the goose and spun around the better to give her daughter a look that told there would be trouble later if this were true.
‘I didn’t mean to!’ Reenie pleaded ‘He’s a very old horse … I did look for a bucket …’
‘Well, fortunately, that’s not what I’m here to ask you about today.’ Sergeant Metcalfe produced a photograph from the back of his pocket notebook. ‘Do you recognise this man?’
Reenie reached out gingerly as though asking if she could pick up the photo, and Sergeant Metcalfe nodded his permission. She looked at it carefully and considered. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen him before, but I think he looks like someone that Mary has said we have to keep away from.’
‘Mary who?’
‘Mary Norcliffe, she’s my friend at work.’
‘And why does she say you have to keep away from him?’ Sergeant Metcalfe made a note of Reenie’s answers in a way so casual that it appeared he was merely doodling to pass the time.
‘He’s after Bess. From the sounds of things he’s after all the girls, but he’s after Bess too, and she’s none too bright, so Mary spends all day and night fendin’ him off like he’s some vampire in a story. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’d got Bess to draw a crucifix on her drawers.’
‘But you’ve never met him?’
‘No. Well, I might have done and not known I had, but I don’t know that I have, if I have, if you know what I mean?’
Sergeant Metcalfe followed her logic, but didn’t encourage her to continue it any further. ‘What about Diana Moore; do you know her?’
‘Oh, aye, she’s a friend from work too.’ Reenie pointed at the photo. ‘That fella’ there is her brother, or summut’, if it’s the same man. She says he looks like a cross between a rat and a frog and she hates him even more than Mary does; he’s away all the time, but when he’s home he brings trouble so she’s always kickin’ him out.’
‘Did Diana tell you this?’
‘No, she’s not much of a talker. It’s all her neighbours; some of the other girls live nearby, and they hear her shoutin’ and carryin’ on, and they’ve told me about it.’
‘What kind of things do they say they hear?’
‘Last I heard was he’d turned up at his sister’s birthday party and she kicked ‘im out and said she hoped he’d die, so there’s no love lost there. They have to live under the same roof, though because he’s the one who brings home the money for the rent.’
‘Do you know how he gets his money?’
‘Oh, some no-good way, probably. I heard he’d been stealin’ and that after he crashed that car in the factory, there were a lot o’ stolen things at their house what he’d kept there. He’s a bad lot in general.’ Reenie shrugged as though this were something abstract and wholly unconnected to her and her friends, something that could not touch them and that it cost her nothing to mention.
‘Has Diana ever asked you to help her with anything at work? Like moving things, or hiding things, or perhaps leaving the factory at an odd time or via an odd route?’
Reenie froze. She had helped Diana to leave early when she’d asked to and leant Diana her locker when she’d needed it. Come to think about it, Diana always left the factory for home by a strange route, but she’d always said it was just to avoid the crush at the main gates. What had Diana got herself involved in? Reenie tried to disguise her fear and simply said. ‘No.’ This conversation was taking a turn that she didn’t like, and that she hadn’t seen coming. She had not been on her guard because she hadn’t thought that she had anything much to hide; she was not, in her mind, the one in the wrong.
Sergeant Metcalfe made a casual note in his pocket notebook. ‘So I suppose Diana would have to help her stepbrother sometimes, whether she liked him or not.’ He looked up from his notebook. ‘You did say that she was reliant on his money for the rent?’
‘Well … I … er …’ Reenie could see that she was trapping herself in her own words and tried to be more conscious of what she was saying and not saying. ‘Like I said, she’s not really much of a talker, but she’s very honest and I know she doesn’t like what he does, so I don’t think she’d ever involve herself in it.’ Reenie swallowed and looked around the family kitchen for some excuse to get the Sergeant to leave, but there was none.
Sergeant Metcalfe nodded thoughtfully. ‘What were you doing at the factory so late on the night when that car crashed into the side of it?’
Reenie was about to answer, but then worried that she might be dragging Peter further into trouble. ‘I was just looking at a machine. I’d been asked to look at a machine.’
‘Is that your job at the factory?’ the Sergeant sounded interested, almost pleased for Reenie. ‘Have you been moved into engineering?’
‘No …’ Reenie tried to sound casual. ‘But sometimes they do ask me to take a look at the machines, just if I’m around and that.’
‘But your shift had finished, hadn’t it?’
‘I quite often stay late after my shift has finished to look over the machines; it’s nothing unusual. It was just a very normal night.’
‘It wasn’t night, though, really, was it?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘It was morning. You were still lookin’ at your machines at one o’clock in the morning.’
Mrs Calder was now facing the pair at her kitchen table, as she leant back her hands gripped the edge of the sink, turning her knuckles white. Her mouth was a grim, tight line and she watched in fear, not daring to speak. When she had let the policeman in it had been to ask some innocent questions to her innocent daughter, perhaps even to hear someone else praise her heroism for all she’d done to save Bess from a burning car, but now the situation had changed, and even she could read between the lines to hear the trouble that her daughter was in.
‘I did stay a bit later that night, but it was just because I got chattin’ to the commissionaires and they wanted me to stay for a cuppa.’
‘What do you know about the machine parts that have been stolen from the factory over the last two months since you started working there, Reenie?’
‘Nothing!’ Mrs Calder broke her silence. ‘She doesn’t know anything! My Reenie is a good girl, she might be a bit cheeky, but she is not and never will be a thief!’
‘Mrs Calder, I would like to hear Reenie’s answer, if you please.’
Reenie didn’t have to think. ‘Honestly, I promise you, I don’t know anything about any of that. I would never—’
‘Tell me again about this man.’ Metcalfe pointed to the photograph.
‘I’ve never met him; he’s just someone that I’m meant to keep Bess away from.’
‘Do you know his name?’
‘He’s Tommo. But that’s all I know about him, I don’t know anything else.’
‘Do you know where he lives?’
Reenie was confident.‘No, I don’t know anything else about him.’
‘But you just told me that he lives with Diana Moore and that you know her neighbours.’
In her fear and her desperation Reenie appealed to the policeman. ‘I haven’t helped him, honest I haven’t, we’re just tryin’ to help Bess on the line because she’s in the family way and she’s too weak to work fast. Please don’t think we’ve done anything wrong, we really wouldn’t, it was only silly stuff on the line, please don’t think we’d do ‘owt serious.’
Mrs Calder wept. ‘Oh Reenie, what have you done?’
The policeman leant forward and said very carefully. ‘After the crash you got on your horse, and your friend got on his bicycle, and you both went in the direction of the house of Diana Moore, Thomas Cartwright, and Ethel Cartwright. Why did you do that?’
‘Because I knew that was where he’d have taken Bess.’
‘Where who would have taken Bess?’
‘The man who got out of the car, I saw him and I—’ Reenie’s voice stopped short as she looked again at the picture, a dawning realisation. ‘His face …’
‘Who’s face?’ Reenie’s mother moved across the kitchen and crouched down next to Reenie in response to the shock and fear in her daughter’s face.
‘His face, it was covered in blood. I didn’t realise it was the same one … or I forgot … I didn’t know. I didn’t, I just wasn’t thinkin’—’
‘Alright, Reenie.’ Sergeant Metcalfe held her eye with a look that reassured the innocent and panicked the guilty. ‘Do you want to go back to the beginning and tell me whose face was covered in blood?’
‘That man, that man there. I thought I hadn’t met him … well, I hadn’t met him, he didn’t see me because he were being pulled out of the car. It were after the crash; I saw him pulled out o’ the car … I’d forgotten what I knew! I’m so sorry; I didn’t mean to lie this time, I didn’t, I’d just forgotten what I knew and what I didn’t know, I’m so sorry!’ Reenie began to hyperventilate with strangled sobs as the enormity of her situation hit her; she was being investigated at work for running a piece rate racket, which was basically true although it had only been a small one. It had only been to help Bess and Mary but it looked so much worse because she’d been messing about with all the other machines at odd times to try to see more of Peter. She had lied to her overlooker to get the sister of a known felon out of work early for God-knows-what purpose and she had got Peter mixed up in all of it. Now the police were questioning her about her connection to criminal acts at the factory that everyone would believe she had masterminded with Bess’s young man, even though she had claimed she’d never seen Tommo but after the crash she took herself straight off in the direction of his house without a second thought. Now she had lied to the police, however inadvertently. This was more serious than trespassing on the way home from the pub. It was the kind of thing that got you put in prison; this was terrifying.
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘You got yourself into this, Reenie, I never asked to get mixed up in bunkin’ off work to get Diana out early, or chasin’ after known criminals in the middle o’ the night, that was all you!’ Mary was holding up her gloved hands in a defensive gesture.
‘But I did it for you and your sister, no one else!’
Mary looked around the deserted, snow-capped bike sheds to make sure they were not being overheard. ‘You made your choices, I didn’t make them for you. That first day when you got me moved down the line and took over my place that was your choice, I didn’t ask for it, I distinctly remember tellin’ you to stay out o’ it, and you wouldn’t.’
‘I’m not askin’ you to do ‘owt else that’s wrong, I’m just askin’ you to come to the hearin’ and tell the director the facts: just explain that Bess was poorly, you don’t even have to say why she’s poorly, just that she’s not very strong and so we rallied round to help her, and only her, and there was no piece rate racket, just a couple o’ girls helpin’ one poorly girl on the line, so the job still got done. That’s all you have to say.’
‘I can’t.’ Mary looked down at the pattern of dirty boot prints in the heavily compacted snow.
‘Why can’t you?’ Reenie was becoming impatient. She didn’t like it when other people couldn’t see logic.
‘I’ve made a promise to Mrs Roth.’
Mary’s words hung in the sharp, cold air for a moment, and then Reenie took in a breath to shout almost loudly enough to shake the snow from the cycle shed roofs. ‘You’ve done what?’
‘You don’t understand, I can’t lose my job now, I’ve got Bess’s doctor’s bills to pay, on top of lookin’ after her when the baby comes. If I lose this job—’
Reenie wasn’t going to get dragged into the spiral of Mary’s worries. ‘But what have you promised Mrs Roth? Tell me what you’ve promised Mrs Roth.’
‘I promised her that I won’t come to the hearin’. I won’t say anythin’. She says she can keep me out of it because I was down the other end o’ the line from you so I couldn’t have known …’
‘Mary bloody Coldheart! Can you hear yourself? Can you even hear the words that are comin’ out o’ your mouth?’
‘You don’t need me! I’ve spoken to the Union, and they’ve said that they’ll stick up for all of us, they’ll be at the hearin’, you don’t have to worry.’ Mary was defiant, but she wasn’t meeting Reenie’s eyes.
‘Don’t have to worry? Don’t have to worry! Do you know what the Union shop steward said to me? He said that they will stick up for all of us, and they will make sure that I get a good reference if I resign after this crisis is over, and we’ve moved back to the proper factory again. They said that I work too fast and they think it would be wise for me to consider goin’ for work in a shop or goin’ into service; into service! I pick up the factory work so fast that if I keep going at this rate the management will expect all the girls to work as fast as I do, and that isn’t fair on the other girls. I’m very useful now while they’re tryin’ to pull together a scratch production line for Christmas, but after that, they’d rather I got out of factory work, thank you very much.’
‘Well …’ Mary floundered, looking for something conservative to say. ‘Maybe it’s for the best. I’m sure the Union know what they’re talkin’ about—’
‘Does that mean you’re handin’ in your notice an’ all?’ Reenie folded her arms.
‘Well, no, why would I?’
‘Because you’re just as fast as I am.’
‘Yes, but I don’t go causin’ trouble with it! I don’t go switchin’ on machines I’m not meant to, or flirtin’ with the Time and Motion managers and askin’ to look through their plans for new lines, and stayin’ late at the factory with ‘em—’
‘If I hadn’t been late at the factory that night your sister would ha’ been dead! We pulled her out that car, an’ then Peter carried her all the way to the hospital. Do you have any idea how lucky she was that we were there when she crashed and that we went to find her after?’
There was stony silence for a moment, anger and resentment hung in the air. The factory whistle sounded, breaking the quiet, and men and women, poured out of the doors, heading for home. Mary turned and ran away through the dirty snow, taking all of Reenie’s hopes with her.
Reenie was devastated. She had truly believed that Mary was her friend, and it had never occurred to her that Mary wouldn’t be as loyal to her as she would have been to Mary. Reenie made her way slowly up Cripplegate towards town. She needed to collect Ruffian from where she’d left him in the stables at The Old Cock and Oak.
As she trudged up the hill, Reenie’s eyes began to sting with tears. She had been so brave until now, but her situation had become too much for her. She hadn’t just lost Mary, but she seemed to have lost her friendship with Peter, too. Reenie had thought that they had shared something, a connection when he had taken her hand that night of the crash when they were in Diana’s house. She felt that there was something special between them, but whatever it had been was gone. She had tried to see him, to talk to him, but he was obviously avoiding her, and there was nothing she could do about it. In a way it felt to Reenie like a bereavement, she was frightened of the trouble that she was in at work, and with the police, but the worst thing of all was mourning the loss of her friendships with Mary and Peter.
Reenie slipped into the courtyard behind the pub with her head down. A few early patrons hovered around the doorway, but none of them were paying any attention to a girl in a hurry.
Reenie could smell Ruffian before she could see him; it was the comforting, sweet smell of hay, and horse and warm oats. ‘Now then old fella’. Reenie buried her nose in Ruffian’s mane and wept. ‘They’ve all gone, they’ve all gone. You’re my only friend now, Ruffian, everyone else has gone.’
A commotion out in the yard made Ruffian fidget, and Reenie heard raised voices coming from outside the pub.
A woman’s voice shouted. ‘I can’t let you in afore half past six. You know the law. I’m not risking my license!’
There was a gruff answer. ‘We have to hear the wireless!’ and another man called out, ‘You have to let us in as citizens!’
Reenie came out of the stables and round to the side of the pub. Mrs Parish, the landlady, was leaning out of the open downstairs window into the courtyard where more and more patrons were arriving; but this wasn’t the usual six-thirty clamour, this was something else.
‘You’ve got eight minutes; you can wait while eight minutes.’ Donna was pleading with the patrons who were obviously restless.
‘We need to hear the wireless! We need to hear the King!’
‘There’s nothing to hear about the King just now, they’ve moved on to some silly thing about books. There won’t be another news broadcast on the National Program ’til nine o’clock tonight. I promise you I’ll be open and the wireless will be on for all to hear and I will call silence so’s we can all hear it.’
A man stepped forward and asked suspiciously, as though Mrs Parish was trying to keep something from them. ‘If they’re just talking about books on the wireless what book are they talking about?’
The landlady sighed, pursed her lips and ducked her head back inside the pub for a moment to check. They could hear voices inside as she asked her son what was being discussed and then put her head out again to tell them, reluctantly. ‘Some fool thing called Follow My Leader.’
There were a few snorts of derision, and someone said, ‘Well how are we to do that if he’s buggered off with some American?’
A young woman appeared round the corner, running at full pelt into the courtyard, light blonde hair and high cheekbones marking her out as the landlady’s daughter. ‘Mother,’ she asked, out of breath, ‘is it true?’
Her mother nodded. ‘Your brother had the wireless on in the taproom and it was on the six o’clock news just now. Late-breaking news they said.’ Mrs Parish shook her head in disappointment and then said to the assembled crowd, ‘alright, it’s half-past six, we’re opening up.’
