The Cuckoo Child (36 page)
Dot glanced, despairingly, first at Corky and then at Nick, and saw her own fears mirrored in their eyes. Corky said a bad word and Nick echoed it, then grinned ruefully at Dot. ‘Until we get our hands on Emma, we’d best do as Corky suggests and simply follow Ollie everywhere,’ he said. ‘And that’s Corky and myself, young Dot, because your place is with your aunt. You’re fond of her, despite all you’ve said, and she truly needs you. What’s more, you can see if you can get anything out of your uncle since he’s plainly involved in the whole affair.’
‘But how are we to find Ollie for starters?’ Corky asked, rather plaintively, as the three of them left the playground and headed for the city centre. ‘He might not be on duty . . . well, he won’t be, if he was working last night, and if he came across Emma he must have been working, wouldn’t you say?’
Nick agreed that this must be so. ‘Which means our best bet is to check up at the police station,’ he said, after some thought. ‘After all, there’s no harm in asking for Mr McNamara, and come to think of it, we could make the excuse that Emma has gone missing and since he’s the bobby on the beat he might easily know where she’s gone. Only – only, as you know, I made a lot of enquiries of the police when I first came to Liverpool, hoping that they’d help me out regarding the robberies in Church Street, and they rather fobbed me off. So I think, Corky, it had better be you who asks about McNamara. Can you make up some reason for wanting to know where the old devil is?’
Corky nodded enthusiastically. ‘I’ll say I’ve got some information for him which I can’t give to anyone else,’ he said confidently. ‘Of course, he might be in the police station and they might fetch him out, and if they do, I’ll – I’ll say that Emma’s missing, hasn’t come in to work. Then I’ll say someone saw the two of them together last night so I thought he might be able to shed some light.’
‘That’s brilliant,’ Dot said admiringly. ‘You really are clever, Corky. That way, if he
did
see Emma last night he’ll get the wind up and probably start to bluster and then you’ll know that he really was on his beat last night and may even have spent some time in Emma’s company.’
did
see Emma last night he’ll get the wind up and probably start to bluster and then you’ll know that he really was on his beat last night and may even have spent some time in Emma’s company.’
Nick nodded agreement. ‘And after that, Corky my boy, you can stick around near the station if McNamara is inside it, or you can go over his beat and see if you can pick him up if he’s not. Meanwhile, I’ll go along to this churchyard – you’ll have to tell me the way, Corky – and see if I can pick up any clues to Emma’s whereabouts.’
Corky, however, shook his head. ‘There’s no point, Nick,’ he said decisively. ‘Since you’ve not been there before, you’d have the devil’s own job to find the path we’ve beaten down from the churchyard wall into the ruined building itself, let alone the crevice. Tell you what, whilst I do my investigating at the police station you can hang around watching for McNamara, and I’ll make my way to the churchyard later.’ He turned to Dot. ‘Don’t you think that’s the best idea, Dotty?’
Dot agreed and presently the three separated and Dot set off, at a determined lope, for Lavender Court.
By the time she reached the house, Dot was beginning to feel apprehensive. She could not believe that either the boys or her uncle would have helped her aunt to dress and get down the stairs, and she could imagine how furious Aunt Myrtle would be to find herself marooned in her stuffy bedroom on such a warm day. She would be furious with her niece and, off hand, Dot could not think of an excuse which would be acceptable to an angry aunt. The truth, unfortunately, could not be told so she had better say she had gone to Church Street to run an errand for a shopkeeper there but it had taken longer than she anticipated. It didn’t sound very convincing even to Dot herself, but anyway, it would have to do.
Dot opened the front door without having to fish the key up through the letter box, however, so she knew someone was home. Her hand was actually upon the knob of the kitchen door when she heard a movement on the landing and, glancing up, saw her Uncle Rupert standing there. His hair was on end, his face was red and his brows were drawn together into a deep frown, though much to Dot’s astonishment his face cleared as he caught sight of her. ‘Dotty McCann, where the devil have you been?’ he asked wrathfully. Dot began to speak but he cut across her words. ‘Well, never mind, queen, you’re here now and that’s what matters. Your aunt’s been took bad but every time I’ve tried to leave her to fetch help she wails and carries on so that I’m scared for me life to go down so much as three stairs, lerralone the whole flight. But now you’re here, I reckon I’d best go for the doctor, or the nurse what lives in the next court, while you give an eye to your aunt.’
‘Shall I bring her up a cup of tea?’ Dot asked, still hovering at the foot of the stairs, but her uncle, thundering down towards her, shook his head.
‘No time for that now. Just you get up and stay with her till I brings back help. Shan’t be long.’ And on the words, he ran towards the door without even bothering to grab a jacket or cap, and disappeared into the court.
Dot entered her aunt’s room with some trepidation and this was not unfounded, for she found Aunt Myrtle lying on the bed looking most dreadfully ill. She was white as a sheet but big beads of sweat were running down her face and her eyes were rolling in a truly frightening manner. When she saw her niece, she tried to pull herself up in the bed, then collapsed back on her pillows once more, groaning loudly.
‘Aunt Myrtle, whatever’s the matter?’ Dot asked wildly. ‘Have you fallen again? Is your poor leg paining you?’
Aunt Myrtle heaved a long, shuddering sigh then began to try to pull herself up in the bed once more. ‘No, I didn’t fall. The babies is comin’ three months before their time and there’s nothin’ I can do to stop ’em,’ she muttered huskily. ‘The pain is awful, chuck, far worse’n a normal birth. And Rupe was so proud o’ fatherin’ twins an’ now I’m goin’ to lose ’em, I know I am.’
Poor Dot felt helpless in the face of her aunt’s plight. She knew that if Aunt Myrtle was truly in labour, there really was nothing that could be done. So she said, cheeringly: ‘If you’re right, Aunt Myrtle, then there’s nothing anyone can do for the poor little babies, but the doctor or the nurse can help
you
. Uncle Rupe’s gone to fetch one of ’em and once they’re here they’ll – they’ll give you something to ease the pain. Now just you look on the bright side, because you said yourself that you had enough mouths to feed without adding two more.’
you
. Uncle Rupe’s gone to fetch one of ’em and once they’re here they’ll – they’ll give you something to ease the pain. Now just you look on the bright side, because you said yourself that you had enough mouths to feed without adding two more.’
Aunt Myrtle, however, was not to be comforted. ‘But I didn’t mean it,’ she wailed. ‘Oh, I know I
said
it, said I didn’t want no more kids, couldn’t manage with ’em, but I didn’t mean for God to go takin’ ’em away.’ She gasped and clutched her swollen stomach as another pain attacked her. ‘It’s a judgement on me, that’s wharrit is, an’ if I die, I reckon I’ll burn in hell for wishin’ harm on two little innocents.’
said
it, said I didn’t want no more kids, couldn’t manage with ’em, but I didn’t mean for God to go takin’ ’em away.’ She gasped and clutched her swollen stomach as another pain attacked her. ‘It’s a judgement on me, that’s wharrit is, an’ if I die, I reckon I’ll burn in hell for wishin’ harm on two little innocents.’
It seemed like hours to Dot before help arrived and, when it came, it was unexpected. The doctor had clearly taken Rupert’s worries seriously and it was two ambulance men who burst into the room, carrying a stretcher between them. They reassured Aunt Myrtle and tried to get her on board the stretcher, but she pointed out that they would never get the thing round the angle of the stairs with her on it and, presently, Dot carried the stretcher down while the two ambulance men manhandled her aunt as far as the front door. Then they got her on to the stretcher, wrapped in coarse grey blankets, for she was still in her stained and ragged nightgown, and Dot accompanied her to the ambulance waiting at the entrance to the court. She would have turned away then, to return to the house and see what needed doing, but was stopped short by a wail from her aunt. ‘Dot, Dot! Come along o’ me, there’s a good girl. I can’t go into one of them hospital wards with no one of me own.’ She turned to the ambulance men. ‘Is it all right if me niece comes along, mister? Only if it ain’t you can just take me back indoors again.’
The ambulance man beckoned Dot aboard. She climbed obediently in beside her aunt, and the vehicle set off at a fast pace. Everyone in the court must have seen them leave but no one, not even a policeman, would come searching for her in a hospital.
For it had occurred to her that Emma, if she had been captured, might well have accidentally given away more than she intended and Dot was already aware that both Rathbone and McNamara knew she lived with her aunt and uncle. They could not know that it had been she who had overheard their conversation on the night of the burglary, but she was pretty sure by now that McNamara would have put two and two together and realised that the child he had caught skulking in the jigger had been no other than Rupert Brewster’s niece. He would have been stupid indeed not to also realise that she could easily have taken the necklace from the dustbin and, whatever their faults, she did not think either Archie Rathbone or Ollie McNamara was stupid.
The ambulance swerved wildly round a corner and came to a screeching stop. The back doors shot open and two stretcher bearers entered the vehicle. Hastily, Dot followed them into the enormous building, her mind divided now between her own troubles and those of her aunt. What would I do if I were Mr McNamara and suspected that someone had overheard that conversation on the night of the burglary, she asked herself, and the answer came far too pat for her own liking: I would silence that listener by any means in my power, she thought grimly. Suppose I went to him and swore myself to secrecy? But she knew she couldn’t do that – wouldn’t do that. She had never known Emma’s grandfather, never even met him, but she knew his reputation. He had been good, kind and generous and had taken her friend Emma in and brought her up. No, his killer should not go unpunished if she, Dot, could help it.
The ward, when she and her aunt entered it, was a long room with cold white walls and a brown linoleum floor. The stretcher bearers put her aunt down on one of the high white beds and a nurse swished the curtain closed, then gestured to Dot. ‘The doctor will be wanting to examine your aunt, so he will,’ she said, in a strong Irish accent. ‘You go and wait in the corridor, alanna, and I’ll call you when it’s all right for you to come back to your auntie.’
Dot trudged obediently out of the ward and hung around the corridor, but presently the doors to the ward shot open and her aunt was carried out once more, the stretcher bearers almost running, though not quite. To Dot’s dismay, she saw that there was blood on the edges of the stretcher and that her aunt’s eyes were closed, and that she was breathing in small, shallow gasps. Dot would have followed the stretcher but the Irish nurse who had spoken to her earlier prevented her from doing so, with a hand on her arm. ‘Your aunt’s miscarrying,’ she said briefly. ‘I’ll take you along to the waiting room, then come and call you when she’s back on the ward. Where’s your uncle?’
‘I don’t know,’ Dot said helplessly. ‘He left me with Aunt Myrtle while he went for the doctor, and he hadn’t arrived back by the time the ambulance appeared. Why, nurse? Is he needed here?’
The nurse shrugged. ‘I don’t suppose it’s important,’ she said. ‘If he comes, I’ll tell Reception to send him down to the waiting room. Come along now.’
Chapter TwelveCorky stood at the long counter in the police station and stared furtively about him, but could see no one who looked even slightly like Dot’s description of Constable McNamara. In fact, there was only one policeman behind the long desk and he was a sergeant, with a big spongy-looking nose, small bright eyes and an engaging grin which revealed that he had a front tooth missing and gave him, for some reason, the look of an innocent schoolboy. He was taking down the details of a lost purse from a fat, untidy woman with a bush of grey hair, who was wearing a voluminous black dress over which she had draped a ragged grey shawl. Corky recognised her as one of the flower sellers from Clayton Place and wondered how she could bear to wear a shawl on such a warm day. Corky edged closer, thinking that the woman could not be much longer, but the sergeant was a friendly man and continued to assure her that he would inform all the local policemen of her lost purse, as they came in to report for duty. ‘I’m not saying as I have a fortune in there,’ the woman said lugubriously, turning away from the desk. ‘Folk don’t buy flowers when it’s this hot ’cos they soon withers and dies. I never thought I’d be grateful to say as I’d had a shocking bad day but I doubt there were more than a couple o’ bob in the purse. No, it’s the purse itself that I values. It’s a big leather one with three compartments and a button-down flap-over and it were me mam’s . . .’
‘Yes, yes, I’ve written it all down, Mrs Williams,’ the policeman said comfortingly. ‘I don’t suppose you’ll ever see the cash again but I reckon the thief will just chuck the purse away as soon as he’s took the money out and some sharp-eyed youngster will bring it in, hoping for a reward.’ His gaze turned to Corky. ‘I suppose you’re not here to report the findin’ of a large leather purse and to reap the reward of . . . ?’ He looked hopefully towards his first customer.
‘Tuppence,’ Mrs Williams said firmly. ‘I’ll pay tuppence to anyone what brings in me purse; that’s fair, ain’t it?’ And she, too, looked hopefully at Corky.
Feeling quite guilty, Corky replied humbly that he had not seen a purse but would certainly keep his eyes open. He did not add that, if the purse was so precious to her, a tuppenny reward seemed rather on the mean side. Poor old gal, trying to sell drooping roses to folk who just wanted to get home so that they could take off their hot and uncomfortable city clothing and relax.
Mrs Williams sighed and lumbered out and the sergeant turned his attention to his remaining customer. ‘Well, young feller-me-lad,’ he said jokingly. ‘If you’ve not found the lady’s purse, then how can I help you? Lost your little dawg? Mislaid your sister? Found your bag of gold at the end of the rainbow?’
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