Touched by Angels (8 page)

“It’s very important,” he added, ignoring her completely.

Trembling, Lil pulled Mrs Cuthbertson’s penny from the little heap of coins in the drawer and handed it back, certain this glib-looking man was a detective.

Mrs Cuthbertson stood, glowering, snatched the penny and wandered back to her Sid, muttering to herself.

Lil looked him up and down and said at last, “Please come inside.” She was convinced, as he followed her through the open door, that he was going to utter the words, “Lillian Smith, I am arresting you for the murder of…”

Scared half to death, she watched as he lowered the Gladstone bag to the floor.

Fifteen

When he said instead, “I am the only son of Horace King, the gentleman who owned this establishment,” she didn’t know whether to be relieved or scared all the more.

Perhaps he was merely here to inform her that, from now on, as sole beneficiary of his estate, he would be her landlord.

Instead, he said, “I want the fob you stole from him.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You heard! It was missing when his body was collected. Only you or your kid could have taken it.”

Bluffing away her fear and certain now that the watch must be worth much more than ten pounds, she snapped, “Mr King, quite apart from the fact that I am innocent of any crime, your family has brought us enough misery already. I do not have your father’s watch or anything else that belonged to him. Now,
please
leave us alone.”

She made to go for the door, but he didn’t budge.

As she was opening it, he said, “I’m not the only one who thinks it odd that a man of your husband’s temperament would kill in the way that was alleged.”

“Well, he did, so…”

“I could always get a private investigator to find out who really did it. The forensic techniques now are really quite breath-taking.”

She paused, looking at Robert, who had appeared at the bottom of the stairs. King added, “I’ll hire the very best in London. Money will be no…”

She turned on him. “Get out of my house!”

“No, madam,
my
house. I have inherited it, and every other hovel in this street, and several dozen others. Now give me the watch or you’ll be sorry.”

He was much more determined than his uncle and she knew he wasn’t going to give in as easily.

King advanced upon her again. She backed off, more frightened by the second. The windowsill dug into her thighs, and with nowhere else to go, she shoved him hard. She would never recall what happened in those next few seconds with any clarity.

It was a blur of arms and legs, Robert leaping out of the way at the last instant; King hitting the mantelpiece back first, mouth wide open in a silent scream.

She would never forget the gurgling noise coming from his throat, as he went down on his knees, with his hands groping behind his back. It wasn’t until he toppled forward on his face, and lay there gasping and raking the floorboards with his fingernails, that she realised what had happened. One of her knitting needles was stuck almost full length in his back.

Robert had staggered back as far as the stair rail, paper white with shock.

Lil’s hair had fallen into her eyes. She walked a step closer, shaking, unable to take her gaze from the long spike she guessed had fatally pierced his heart. She was wondering if she should try to pull it out, when his right hand suddenly shot out and grabbed her ankle. She yelped and stumbled, falling into an awkward sitting position, with her dress in a ruck around her.

Still holding her ankle, his face turned up towards hers, a picture of agony. He tried to speak, but a long wheeze and a frothy sound came out instead, followed by a trickle of blood. His head dropped to the floor with a hollow bang, though his eyes remained open.

The grip relaxed on her ankle and she shuffled quickly backwards until she met the door. She looked across the room, over the second dead body to adorn the floor in less than a fortnight, to see her son transfixed by shock, eyes as wide as saucers, mouth gaping open.

She struggled up slowly, her mind racing, as she pushed her hair out of her eyes, knowing there would be no winkling out of it this time, even though what had happened was a genuine accident.

She knew that sending Robert off to find Sharp was a waste of time, because even as dense as he was, he wouldn’t believe a second alibi. Sheer despair engulfed her. She would certainly go to prison and might even hang, while Robert would be taken away to God knows where.

He was blubbing by now, as he asked, “What… what are we going to do?”

“Do?” She was almost angry. “They’ll think we murdered him.” She sat at the table, her legs weak.

Robert’s voice had no strength in it. “But… we… we didn’t. He fell against… He was pushin’ you about… and then…”

Numb, she wished she could stop trembling, as she tried to think what to do.

Then there was a rap on the door. She jumped as though an electric current had passed through her.

Robert bolted upstairs.

She knew that whoever stood beyond would see the body if she opened it more than a crack. Fighting panic, she dragged it under the windowsill, thankfully on the opposite side to which the door opened, as another, louder rap came. She opened it about two inches, knowing if a constable stood there, the game would be up.

Instead, there was a squat, middle-aged woman, wearing a choker that gleamed with a Star of David. Her grey hair was piled up in a bun, with brass pins running through to secure it. Mrs Cohen from Carnaby Lane was another of her regulars.

Apart from the fact that she, too, thought Lil was blessed with her ‘gift’, her agile mind would wonder how, with her husband gone, worthless as he had been, she could afford to turn business away. So, against all her instincts, Lil stepped outside, hoping to God Robert wouldn’t have a breakdown in the next ten minutes.

As she started going through her pitch trying to stop herself from stuttering and being sick, her mind was still churning over the few dubious options open to her.

As Mrs Cohen finally wandered off, happy with what Lil had told her, that her own idle husband would soon be up off his backside, doing some work, something else occurred to her too. Something of perhaps vital importance.

She was twitching as she went indoors to find out.

Sixteen

It stood on the table, beckoning. The Gladstone bag.

She was glad it was getting dark, so she could legitimately pull the curtains and light the oil lamps. Then, after a nervous glance at the door, she pulled the bag towards her, and clicked it open.

As Robert watched, she pulled the two halves apart, and their eyes started from their heads, as she reached inside and pulled out a wad of pound notes.

She whispered “My God!” as she studied it, before laying it on the table.

Then, feverishly, she pulled out another, and another, and another. They were wrapped in bands of royal blue, freshly printed, with the intoxicating scent of the Mint. There were so many, she had to stack them, and when she had finished, they stared at the foot high fortune for a very long time.

Certain she was trapped in a dream, she flicked through one of them, to find there were a hundred notes and a hundred wads, making ten thousand pounds in total. The sum was so vast, it was almost impossible to comprehend.

But what was she to do with it…?

Take it to the police, or to Sir Rupert King or… or use it to take her and Robert away from this dump forever?

There was more than enough.

She looked at him and knew there would never be another opportunity. The boy didn’t stand a chance here, however much she endeavoured to change things,
or
make him read the Bible.

She sighed long and hard as she looked at the book too, sitting next to the bag, as if God himself had placed it there, as a pious reminder.

That little voice was back. ‘Honesty won’t pay the bills,’ it whispered slyly. ‘It won’t clothe or feed you. It won’t pay your ticket to a street without whooping cough and consumption.’

She exhaled long and hard as her gaze turned back to the money. She looked at the body too, and the same question popped up in her head. What was she to do about him? She closed her eyes, put her elbows on the table and put her face in her hands, as her brain raced.

She knew she had no choice. He would have to go and the money would have to stay.

More than an hour had passed since King had arrived, and she knew, as she threw a blanket over him, that his disposal would be difficult.

If she started digging in the back yard, she was likely to attract attention, because there were too many windows and too many people used the back alley, as well as the stray dogs that might try and dig him up. It would also have to be done during the hours of darkness, which would fuel any suspicion.

She considered dumping him in the stinking canal that took the sewage from Canary Wharf into the Thames, knowing the rats would dismember him in no time, as they did the tramps and drunks who sometimes fell in, but again, there was the risk of him being found.

Robert asked again, “What are we going to do?”

“There is only one thing we can do. In the morning, we will lift the floor boards, put him under them and put them back.”

‘There, you’ve said it,’ the little voice purred. ‘No going back now.’

Robert was silent for a few moments, before adding with hope in his eyes, “Then, will we leave here forever?”

“No! That would be the stupidest thing we could do. King was a rich man and rich people have many friends. If they suddenly go missing, questions are asked. Nobody cares about the poor, people like us, so nobody asks. That is a sad fact of life we can turn to our advantage for when we
do
disappear.”

***

Hours later, daylight was vague and muted through the curtains as she asked, yawning, “What do you want to eat?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Rubbish! You’re a growing boy. You must.”

She dragged herself up, blinking away both sleep and the horrible dreams that had plagued her, while Robert looked wearily at the body again, and whispered, “We won’t go to Heaven now, will we?”

He flinched as she gripped his forearms tightly and stared into his eyes.

“Now you jolly well listen to me! What’s done is done. It was a genuine accident, not murder. That is the difference, added to which, he was not here on some errand of mercy. He was threatening us and didn’t care one hoot who murdered his father, or what would become of us. If we know that, then come the day of reckoning, God will know it too, all right?”

He nodded.

She prepared them some bread and cheese, with milk to wash it down.

Later she sent him down the garden to get the jemmy from the outside toilet that his father had used in the past to prize up the floorboards, to stash bootleg alcohol.

***

The toilet backed onto their neighbour’s and he could hear old Mr Digweed, a grouchy, miserable character with a limp, the other side, cursing as he pulled the chain for about the eighth time, before walking out and slamming the door, which bounced back open with a juddering noise.

Robert had enough sense to wait until he had made his way back down the path, before venturing out, taking the time to relieve himself while he waited. He didn’t bother pulling the chain, because theirs had never worked. His mother had always tipped a pail of water down at the end of every day, from the kitchen tap.

He thought of his father as he made his way back, the jemmy concealed under his coat. He could see him very clearly in his mind’s eye, alone in his cell, or outside in the blazing sun, smashing up rocks.

As he walked into the parlour and watched his mother pulling the needle from King’s back, the sight of the congealed blood on the metal made him feel sick. Revulsion swamped him in waves as she wiped it on King’s jacket, before going through his pockets

***

Lil levered up the floorboards, cringing at the frightful squealing noise they were making, that was impossible to muffle. A foetid damp smell rolled up from the hole, and they heard squeaking, followed by the scamper of little feet.

He was heavy, but raw fear was driving her.

When King was finally laid to rest, with his bowler hat on his face, she was too nervous to pray over him, and thought it hypocritical anyway.

The hardest part was putting the nails back, because although some went in with a push, others had to be tapped in, using the jemmy as a crude hammer. The noise seemed out of all proportion to the force used.

When she had finished, her mind turned to the money once more, as she wondered what King’s intentions were for it, though she knew it hinted at dangerous discord.

She was to find out what the very next day, when Robert ran home from school with a newspaper clutched in his hand.

Seventeen

She felt her heart sink, seeing King, whose Christian name was Adam, staring back from the front page, and above him, the headline confirming he was on the run.

It seemed his two uncles, one of whom must have been that ogre with the monocle who had evicted the Inkpens, were contesting his father’s will, insisting that much of the liquid assets of his estate were theirs. They had even posted a cash reward of one hundred pounds for information as to their nephew’s whereabouts.

The ten thousand must have formed part of that estate. She could guess what had happened. With nobody else in the world he could trust, and with the high probability of these ruthless men winning a court case, the spectre of destitution would have been most unpalatable for him, after a life of ease, so he had taken what he could and run.

Unsurprisingly, the article went on to the missing fob and that Adam King might have it in his possession. They desperately wanted this back too, for sentimental reasons.