The Fight for Lizzie Flowers (33 page)

‘What did Bray want?’ Lizzie asked as she joined him.

‘He’d like to nab me for an insurance job.’ He turned to look down at her.

‘Did you have any?’

‘No. I was meaning to shop around. Try to get some cover. But I have to admit the fireman was right. This place was never meant for a garage.’

‘Danny, if you need—’

‘No, I don’t, thanks.’ He wasn’t about to admit to being brassic, though God only knew what he was going to do now.

‘Is there anything we can salvage?’ Bert asked as he and Cal walked slowly towards them.

‘Can’t go in till tomorrow. But I doubt it.’ Danny pushed his hand through his hair. He was trying to put aside his anger, but all he could see was Savage’s ugly mug
looming up in front of him. ‘You’ll regret this,’ Savage had warned on the day he’d tried to buy him out. ‘I’m not finished with you or your poxy
garage.’

And the man had been true to his word.

Lizzie sipped the hot tea she had been handed, grateful for the hospitality of the river men who had made them welcome after the fire brigade had left. Danny, Bert and Cal were
talking to a poorly dressed man called Robert. They all sat in a semi-circle on upturned wooden boxes inside the derelict building the river men called home.

‘You’re sure it was Savage?’ Danny asked and received a firm nod.

‘The same one as come round here and tried to kick us out,’ said a woman who had put a battered old kettle on the brazier to boil.

‘When was that?’ Danny asked.

‘A few nights ago. They did us over. Smashed our stuff and, when Robert and Phil tried to stop them, they roughed them up.’

‘Told us to get out,’ said Phil, who was sitting by Bert. ‘Said they’d torch us if we didn’t.’

‘But it looks like you was first,’ said Robert, nodding at what was left of the garage.

‘Anything left of your gear?’ Phil asked, pushing his straggly dark hair from his face.

Danny shook his head. ‘Might be one or two bits in the store. I can’t get down in me cellar yet to see if the tools are okay.’

‘We’ll help if you like,’ said Robert.

Danny smiled. ‘I’d be much obliged.’

Lizzie noted all the river men still wore their greatcoats, despite the fact it was high summer. But the woman called Mary was sweating as she worked over the brazier. Like the handful of women
Lizzie had seen about the encampment, she was dressed in a long skirt, boots and patched blouse with a leather belt. A brightly coloured scarf was wrapped around her head and two black plaits fell
out from it. Lizzie thought she must be quite young as there were children playing close by and she appeared to be their mother. But the hard life Mary had lived made her look much older. Her
swarthy skin was the same rough texture as the other women’s. These were the families of the tough breed of men who, as bargees and boatmen, had made their living on the water. Sadly they had
fallen on hard times and their barges were gone. Like Danny, they had lost everything.

Lizzie liked the way Danny and Cal spoke to them, as old friends. He’d told her how much he liked their music and singing and the way the kids played down on the foreshore, digging up bits
of coal and timber for their fires. Lizzie thought fondly of the days when, as children, she and Bert and Vinnie had done much the same. Searching for fuel in the mud, they had been dirty but
happy. Just as these children were.

Lizzie smiled at a ragged infant who sat at Mary’s feet. Was it a boy or a girl? The child was content as it played with a handful of stones in the dirt.

‘Did you tell the copper?’ Phil asked.

‘That it was Savage?’ Danny shook his head.

‘Sorry we couldn’t chip in, mate,’ said Robert, staring into the heat of the brazier. ‘But it don’t pay us to mix with the bobbies. They’d only try to move us
on, so we keep our heads down.’

‘Aren’t you worried Savage will come back?’ asked Lizzie.

‘Course,’ said Mary. ‘But we can’t just up sticks. Nowhere to go. We been here a year now, longest we ever been anywhere on land.’

‘What happened to your barges?’

‘We had to sell ’em as in the depression the dock work dried up.’

‘Why is Savage so interested in this land?’ Cal asked.

‘Dunno.’ Robert drank his tea, then looked at Danny. ‘With you and us gone, it would leave a big space.’

‘Who does this warehouse belong to?’ Lizzie asked.

‘Some old geezer up West.’

They all sat silently, until Phil got up and paced around, kicking up dirt as he went. Robert went to talk to him and after a while they both returned.

‘There’s something else you’d better know,’ said Robert, scratching his long beard.

‘What’s that?’ Danny asked.

‘That bloke on the bike,’ Phil said in almost a whisper. ‘What was he to you?’

Danny lifted his shoulders on a shrug. ‘A friend’s husband.’

‘Not family, then?’

‘No. But close enough.’

‘The coppers ain’t found out who done it?’

Lizzie’s heart beat faster. ‘No, why?’

Robert looked around him, as did Phil. Their bearded faces and dark eyes glowed in the light of the fire. ‘It was Savage,’ he said, stooping low. ‘We was sitting on the wall
and got a good butcher’s. The geezer on the bike drove under the car’s wheels. When the window broke, we saw it was Savage in the back seat.’

‘Are you certain it was him?’ Danny said.

‘Yeah.’

‘Savage?’ Cal repeated slowly. ‘But he didn’t even know Richard.’

‘Reckon it was just bad luck,’ said Phil, ‘but only cowards drive off and don’t stop to help.’

‘We ain’t telling the cops, mind.’ Robert shook his head fiercely.

Lizzie turned to Mary. ‘But Leonard Savage killed my friend’s husband, a young man with a wife and a family. He needs to be reported. If we all go to the police
together—’

Mary shook her head fiercely. ‘You heard the men, love. We don’t want nothin’ to do with the law. Or with that crook.’

‘But if he comes back here as he threatened, you won’t have any choice but to defend yourselves.’

‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,’ Robert said flatly. ‘Sorry about your friend. Real sorry.’

‘Time for us to go,’ Danny said, getting to his feet suddenly. ‘Thanks for the tea.’

‘Remember, no cops,’ Robert shouted after them.

Out in the warm evening air, the grey ash skittered around their feet. ‘We can’t do nothing more tonight,’ Cal said, looking at Danny. ‘See you here in the morning and
we’ll start the clearing up.’

Danny nodded but, as Cal went to walk away, Danny took his arm. ‘Listen, mate, there’s nothing here for you now. No wage and no work.’

Cal grinned. ‘Reckon we’ll manage somehow. Till we get our lean-to set up.’

‘Yeah,’ Bert agreed. ‘You ain’t finished yet.’

Danny made an effort to smile. ‘See you in the morning then.’

‘Do you think the river men are telling the truth about Richard?’ Lizzie asked as they walked to Danny’s car.

‘Why would they make it up?’ Danny said.

‘Don’t seem like it was intended,’ Bert muttered.

Lizzie climbed into the rear. As they drove away, she could see the river men sitting on the wall. She didn’t blame them for not wanting to be witnesses. They were as afraid of the law as
they were of the underworld.

She could taste the smoke on her lips and feel the dirt on her face. Like Danny, she wanted to vent her anger. Her best friend had been made a widow because of Savage. Danny had lost his garage
because of Savage. The villain had threatened her and her business. What would come next?

‘Are we going to tell Ethel?’ Bert said quietly.

‘Not yet. What good would the knowledge do her, if the man who killed her husband can’t be brought to justice?’

‘Perhaps not in a court of law,’ Danny said, his voice low.

Lizzie waited for him to say more. But he just drove on through the streets, his face set in hard lines as he stared ahead.

‘She knows,’ Syd said, looking at his brother who was counting out the day’s takings. ‘I’m telling you, the watch gave us away. I didn’t
even know you’d nicked it!’

‘Fell off in my hand,’ said Walter, wetting his thumb as he flicked through the notes. ‘Have it, if that makes you happy.’

‘It’s too late now.’ Syd was so frustrated that he wanted to shake Walter. ‘She’s sussed out that we trounced her old man. I’ve no liking for him, but you
knifed the geezer. He could have died.’

‘So? Good riddance to bad rubbish.’ Walter sat back in his chair and raised his hands behind his head, locking his fingers together. Putting his feet up on the desk he said with
forced patience, ‘Do you know, Syd, you’re getting on me bleeding wick. All I hear is moans. I ask you to drive my motor, plain and simple. Thanks to Clifford you can now operate four
wheels without driving into the back of a bus. But then, all of a sudden, you’re on my case, moaning it’s nicked.’

‘Well, it is,’ Syd retorted indignantly. He scraped back his chair and stood up. Striding up and down the floor of the wooden hut that acted as the scrapyard office, he loosened his
tie and stretched his short neck. He hated cheap suits. He hated vulgar ties. And Clifford insisted he wore them every day to impress the clients. Syd was going hot around the collar as he
reflected on the duties he performed daily. Most of which were to drive villains from the East End to Soho and back. Not that Walter had ever admitted they were hard men, doing deals that Syd
overheard from the back seat and which were having the effect of turning his hair prematurely grey. They weren’t your average punter and Syd had recognized the fact from the start. What had
possessed him to give up his job as a fish porter? How had it happened that he’d got himself entangled with the escapades of his two brothers? Why had he listened to the Missus when she told
him he’d never regret his decision to join the firm? Why had he persuaded Flo that his family might be rough around the edges, but they were legit? If the blagging going on in the back of the
motor as he drove Walter’s clients up to the city was true, then he was in trouble.

‘Your motor’s got new plates and a paint job,’ Walter was saying as he clipped one end off a cigar and stared innocently at Syd. ‘No one knows it was used on a
job.’

‘But I do,’ said Syd, beginning to feel the same hopeless dismay that he’d had each day for weeks now. When he woke up in the morning he tried to convince himself he was
looking forward to the day ahead. ‘I keep checking over my shoulder, wondering if the coppers are following me.’

At this, Walter lowered his feet and leaned his elbows on the desk in front of him. His smiling round face, benign, now began to turn ugly and Syd recognized that look. In fact he was afraid of
it. And he was ashamed of himself for the way he was kowtowing to Walter. ‘Syd, you’ve got all you could ever want in life. A pretty little missus, a kid on the way, a house full of new
furniture, a motor and, basically, everything you could want to make your family happy. Yet every day you come in here and chew off me ear. Only six months ago you stank like a bag of shit. And now
look at you. All tonsed up to the eyeballs and earning a generous wedge. I tell you, after all the family’s done for you, I’m beginning to think you’re an ungrateful
sod.’

Syd stared into the red-veined eyes that bore down on him, and the fat finger that wagged in his face. He knew in his water that this was a message he wasn’t meant to forget. His eyes had
been well and truly opened since coming to the scrapyard. There were things he’d seen going on here that made his stomach curl. He tried to turn a blind eye to the violence, blagging and
half-inching that went on, but he couldn’t any longer. Lizzie had woken him up to the fact that he had a conscience. And conscience didn’t mix with the firm’s business.

‘Look, take the day off,’ Walter said easily, his tone immediately softening. He thumbed three large notes from the pile and threw them across at Syd. ‘Go home, take the little
lady out. Buy her something nice up West. You deserve it.’

Syd stared at the money. He didn’t want it, but he was afraid to refuse it. There was threat hidden in Walter’s voice, despite the bribe. Or, perhaps, because of it.

‘Go on, get out of here.’ Walter laughed easily. ‘And tomorrow come in with a smile on your face.’

Syd knew he had his family to think of. Every time Walter reminded him of that, he felt the same sick twist in his guts. He was holding a candle to the devil. And the devil was staring right
back at him.

It was Rosie who opened the door to greet Lizzie and Polly. ‘Hello, Auntie Lizzie. Come in.’

Lizzie kissed Rosie’s pale cheek as she entered the house to the smell of a Sunday roast cooking. ‘How are you, Rosie?’

‘All right, I suppose.’

‘Is Mum there?’

‘Yes, she’s in the kitchen. Hello, Pol.’ Rosie smiled. ‘Come and see Mum, Pol, then we can go up to my room.’

Lizzie saw Polly nod eagerly as she grabbed Rosie’s hand. Last week, when they had called round briefly to tell Ethel about Danny’s misfortune, Polly had brought a drawing
she’d made of Rosie. It was a very good drawing and Rosie had stuck it on her wall.

As they walked through to the kitchen, Lizzie thought how once Timothy would have been down those stairs in a flash. But Richard’s death had affected him. Ethel complained he was going out
a lot whereas once he was a home bird. Rosie was reluctant to go out, even giving up her evenings at the local youth club to stay with Ethel.

Ethel shut the stove door quickly. ‘I didn’t expect to see you two here on a Sunday.’

‘We’ve left Frank to cook the dinner.’

‘Uncle Frank said he won’t burn it, like last time,’ Polly said with a shy grin.

‘He’d better not,’ Ethel replied. ‘Or we’ll have the Yorkshire batter him.’ It was an old joke and Lizzie was pleased to see a faint smile back on
Ethel’s face. Last week she had been very down. But it was still early days.

‘We’re going upstairs, Mum,’ said Rosie. ‘I’m gonna show Polly me new dress for my job.’

‘Your job?’ Lizzie asked in surprise.

‘Yes. I’m starting work at a dress shop in Greenwich.’