Nameless (14 page)

The old man, Bob Julius, had gabbled on to Alvin and him after the Tranter woman had departed, giving them chapter and verse about the night when his dog vanished, and neither of them had really been listening. He had his dog back; end of story.

But something penetrated. PC Churcher heard him talking about blood in the road next morning. His ears perked up.

‘There’s never many cars or vans about in the night, petrol rationing’s seen to
that
,’ said the old chap. ‘But when I went out in daylight to look for Bruiser, there was blood on the road.’

‘So you think the dog must have been knocked down?’ Now PC Tranter was staring at the dog, with its crooked hind leg lifted an inch or two off the ground.

‘Must have been. Look at his poor bloody leg.’

‘Give me your address, sir.’

Bob Julius gave it, while busily patting the dog’s head and grinning with delight at finding Bruiser again.

‘Well, that’s odd,’ said PC Churcher.

‘What is?’ asked Alvin.

‘It looks like the dog was run over by a car or a van . . .’

‘I think it
was
a van, I heard an engine and it sounded too loud for a car,’ chipped in Julius. ‘And there was something else. I didn’t think nothing of it at the time. I heard a bloke shout: “Back up a bit!”’

PC Churcher was writing all this down in his notebook. ‘Like he – no, like someone else with him in the van maybe – had run over the dog, it was lying under the wheels, and he had to back up to release the injured animal?’

‘Like that I suppose. Yeah,’ said Julius.

‘That’s odd,’ repeated PC Churcher.

‘What’s
odd?’ asked Alvin impatiently.

‘Well, that was the widow Tranter, who lives two streets down from here. While Mr Julius here lives half a mile away. So how did the dog get from outside Mr Julius’s house to Mrs Tranter’s?’

They all three looked at each other. If injured but able to walk, the dog would have surely gone back indoors, to his home. But if the injuries had been severe . . .

‘In the van,’ said Alvin and Bob Julius, at the same time.

‘It’s likely,’ agreed PC Churcher.

It was interesting, but it was nothing of any real importance. Except that the widow Tranter’s husband had been Micky Tranter, local gangster, so she couldn’t be all that straight herself, surely?

But so what?

No. It was nothing.

‘When did this happen, exactly?’ he asked, folding his notebook and slipping it back into his breast pocket.

Bob Julius gave PC Churcher the date. ‘I remember it because it was my old lady’s birthday. What a bloody birthday, eh? Two raids. We had to eat our dinner down the shelter. And then my dog goes missing.’

PC Churcher was staring at the old man.

‘Will that be all now, officer? I’ll get Bruiser home, my old lady’s going to be made up.’

‘Yes,’ said PC Churcher, ‘that’s all for now, thank you, sir.’

PC Churcher was walking away to continue his beat when Alvin called after him: ‘Hey! Wasn’t that the night the Post Office mail van got done?’

35

Ruby had to run off the stage in the middle of the midday performance. There was ’flu going around – as if they didn’t have enough on their plates with Hitler dropping bombs on their bloody heads – and she knew she’d caught it. Several of the girls already had, and were off sick.

She vomited in the tiny loo backstage. Mrs Henderson was there, rich as Croesus so everyone said, but as kind as a mother hen. Draped in fox furs and scented with sickly lavender that made Ruby’s stomach turn over all the more. She tutted and cooed over Ruby.

‘Oh dear – looks like you’ve caught it,’ she said, laying a cool hand on Ruby’s hot, sweating brow. ‘Better go home, dear. Right now,’ she added, as Ruby started to weakly protest.

She felt no better next day. She was sick again. Vi came by and eyed her beadily.

‘Fuck it, not you too. They’re all coming down with it, we’re dropping like flies.’

Betsy came by a couple of days later. She had forgiven Ruby for forgetting their date, and was determined to prove herself magnanimous. She knew Ruby was on her own with no woman to care for her. She bustled around happily. Ruby needed her. Vi was no good where there was illness, so it was her, Betsy, who saved the day. Ruby’s old dad with his dicky foot and Charlie and Joe were worse than useless when there was sickness in the family – men always were.

‘Why don’t
they
get it?’ Ruby moaned, feeling useless lying in bed with her stomach turning over and over. ‘I could look after
them.
But no. They’re fine, aren’t they? It’s just me that’s copped it.’

‘Don’t worry, dear,’ said Betsy, bringing her a mug of hot Bovril. ‘I’m here, aren’t I?’

A week later, Ruby was no better.

Charlie came and stood in her doorway. ‘Fuck’s sake, Ruby. You look like death.’

‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me,’ she moaned. All she knew was that she was spending a lot of time stumbling back and forth to the chamber pot, being sick. Her head wasn’t bad, she wasn’t all snotty and bunged-up. Maybe it was something more serious. Maybe she had appendicitis. She’d heard you could die from that, if it burst.

‘Better get the doctor out,’ said Charlie, and turned and went off downstairs.

The doctor was there by mid-afternoon.

Ruby didn’t ask how Charlie had achieved this miracle. Charlie always had money, she knew that much; he would have slipped the quack a few quid for this visit.

The doctor was old, fat, and he looked worn out. He blustered about the bedroom, stuck a freezing-cold stethoscope against Ruby’s chest and back, palpated her stomach.

‘Is it appendicitis?’ she asked.

Joe came and leaned against the doorframe, concern on his face. ‘Is it the ’flu, Doc?’ he asked. ‘She’s been like it a couple of weeks now, does it go on that long?’

The doctor was busy prodding at Ruby’s midriff. ‘Last show?’ he asked.

For a moment, stupidly, she thought he was talking about the shows at the Windy. But he was asking when her last period had occurred. Her periods had always been erratic. She thought back. ‘I’m not sure. . .’

Now she was beginning to feel anxious. She thought it could be six, seven weeks since her last period, maybe even longer. She’d been so busy, working and seeing Cornelius – who hadn’t been near her since she’d been off sick, the bastard – and thinking of fun and laughter and dinners at the Ritz, she hadn’t even been noticing what was going on.

‘Six weeks ago, I think,’ she said.

‘I think it must be longer.’ The doctor’s eyes held hers. ‘You seem to be about two months pregnant.’

Ruby felt every muscle in her body freeze. ‘You
what?
’

‘It’s morning sickness,’ the doctor said, putting his stethoscope back into his bag and snapping it shut with finality. He stood up. ‘Worse in the early stages – you should start to feel better soon.’

The doctor went to the door. Ruby’s panic-stricken eyes met Joe’s. Her brother was looking at her as if she was a stranger.

‘You’re saying she’s up the duff?’ Joe asked in disbelief.

Ruby cringed. She felt even worse now than she had before. Now she felt not only sick but ashamed. She could see the harsh disapproval in Joe’s eyes; he thought she was a slag.

‘She’s pregnant,’ the doctor repeated as he stood beside Joe at the door. He glanced back at Ruby. He knew the family, he knew she was unmarried, he knew
everything
. Ruby reddened and shrank back into the pillows.

With that, the doctor went off down the stairs and out the front door. Joe stood there, as if transfixed, staring at Ruby. Then suddenly he bellowed: ‘Charlie! Get up here!’

She was just glad that Dad wasn’t up here too. His health – always a problem – had been getting steadily worse. Now he was asthmatic, and what with his bad foot and that, he could no longer manage the stairs. Charlie and Joe had put a bed in the front parlour for him.
Thank God for small mercies,
she thought. Dad was a spent force now, and she was grateful for that, at least.

Ruby sat at the breakfast table with Joe and Charlie a few weeks later. She’d taken Dad in his breakfast on a tray. The sickness was still bad, but she could force down a slice of bread and jam, a cup of tea. What
really
choked her was the way her brothers looked at her. Mostly they didn’t talk to her at all. But when they did, their eyes said it all. That she was disgusting, a tramp, a disappointment.

After the doctor’s visit, Charlie was too furious to speak. But later, he had spelled out how it was going to be. She could carry on working at the salvage centre, do whatever the fuck she liked, until she started to show.

‘Then we’ll ship you off, maybe down to Aunt Martha’s in Essex. You can have the kid, then I’ll take care of what’s to be done with it. Then you can come back here.’ Charlie stared at her face, his lip curling in disapproval. ‘I ain’t even told Dad yet, Christ knows how he’d take it. He’s ill enough as it is. And look, you daft mare – don’t for fuck’s sake ever get caught like this again.’

What’s to be done with it.
Those words rang around Ruby’s head like a death knell. Like the baby growing inside her was a piece of rubbish, to be disposed of. Like she herself was an embarrassment, to be shunted aside where no one could see the shame she had brought upon the Darkes.

Charlie was terrifying when he was like this: cold and hostile, taking over, directing operations.

‘Who did it then?’ he demanded while they sat at the breakfast table.

Ruby sat there, silent. She knew what Charlie was capable of in the grip of one of his rages. She didn’t want Cornelius hurt. She
loved
him. She hadn’t broken the news to him yet, but she had every confidence that he would take care of her, and their child, even if he
was
married.

‘Now come on. I said
who the fuck did it?’
Charlie shouted in her face, thumping the kitchen table with his fist. ‘You tell me now, you bitch, or I swear . . .’ He raised his hand.

‘Easy,’ said Joe, looking uncomfortable. Ruby was
expecting,
after all.

‘Cornelius Bray,’ blurted out Ruby in a paroxysm of fear. ‘He works at the War Office.’

The rest of it poured out too. That she’d been working at the Windy, not the salvage yard; and it was at the Windmill Theatre that she’d met Cornelius.

36

Charlie ran over to the corner shop like a long dog. He barrelled inside, slapped the CLOSED sign up, and turned on Betsy, who was frozen in surprise behind the counter.

‘Charlie?’ she said, bewildered.

He rushed across to her and grabbed her by the arm.

‘Ow! Charlie, that
hurts
,’ cried Betsy.

‘You been covering for her. Ain’t you?’

‘What . . . ?’ asked Betsy faintly, eyes wild with fright.

‘Now
don’t
play the innocent, Bets. I’m talking about Ruby. She’s up the duff. She’s been lying to us, saying she was doing war work over at the salvage centre, when in fact she was playing the fucking
tart
at that Windmill place.’

‘I didn’t . . .’ Betsy started.

Charlie shook her, hard. ‘You
knew.
Don’t tell me you didn’t, because you ruddy well did. You two have always been thick as thieves.’

Not any more
, thought Betsy. Now Ruby seemed to much prefer Vi’s company to hers. In fact, she could now see that Ruby had only
made use
of her, while she was off having fun with Vi. And now look! It had all gone wrong for Ruby, which just about served her right.

‘She asked me to cover for her,’ lied Betsy. ‘It was her idea. I wanted her to tell you, I told her so. You have to believe me, Charlie.’

Something about the earnest expression on Betsy’s face calmed Charlie. He let go of her arm and passed a weary hand over his brow.

‘What are you going to do then, Charlie?’ she asked. It would reflect badly on him, on the entire family, Ruby having a child out of wedlock.

‘Sort it out,’ he said. ‘What the hell else can I do?’

He went across the shop. Flipped over the sign. Opened the door. A copper was standing there.

37

PC Churcher dragged Charlie down to the local nick. Chewy, Ben and Stevie were hauled in too, and Joe, and they were questioned intensively over the mail van robbery. But making this shit stick was proving a lot harder than Churcher had first thought it would be. After long hours, Charlie and Joe and the boys were released.

But Churcher couldn’t let it go.

This injured dog had opened up new possibilities. Patiently and diligently, he took statements from the dog’s elderly owner and his wife, and then he kept an eye on the widow Tranter’s house for a few days, and
then
, confident that he had something to go on, he reported back to his superior officer at the Yard. Churcher knew he would be in line for promotion if he could bring this case alive again.

‘So, what you got?’ asked his sergeant.

Churcher laid it out for him. Micky Tranter’s widow and her connection to Charlie Darke, who was a known villain who had been questioned in the case though charged with nothing. Charlie had been seen twice this week going into her house; Mrs Tranter with the injured dog, and its owner’s intervention in the street; and the fact that the dog had apparently been run over on the night of the mail van robbery.

‘So you know what I think?’ said Churcher in conclusion while the sergeant sat silent, taking it all in. ‘I think Charlie Darke and his boys
did
pull off that robbery. They ran over the dog with the van, it was injured. And Charlie took it to his fancy piece for her to sort out.’

‘Maybe,’ said the sergeant.

‘We’ve got to take a look at that mail van, sir. It was found empty the day after the robbery and put in the pound over near Augustus Street, wasn’t it?’

His superior nodded. Maybe Churcher
was
onto something. ‘If the van hit the dog . . .’ he said.