The Urchin's Song (13 page)

Bart glanced at the police station which was situated next to the Cross Keys public house. For the first time in his life the law represented safety, but there was no way he could break away from the three men and reach the small brick house without being overpowered. Dear God, dear God. He repeated the blasphemy over and over in his mind as he led the way past the newly extended church with its recently raised roof on his right and what looked to be a sandpit on his left, whereupon the road narrowed into a thin dark lane with buildings belonging to the gravel pit some way in front of them. Once they were past the pumping station it was very dark and very quiet, the only sound coming from the horse’s hooves as it clip-clopped along the side of the old gravel pit, a row of trees on the right of the road standing stark and bare against the harsh night sky.

‘Where . . . where do you want me to . . . to stop?’ Bart was stammering but he couldn’t help it. Patrick might be a skinny little runt of a man but that knife made two of him, and although Wilf was small the other one, Lenny, was built like a bull. He should’ve followed Patrick into the pub and stayed there, or even nipped across to the police house. But he couldn’t have done that, he argued with himself as he led the horse and cart along the frozen track leading off the lane, after Patrick called for him to turn left. Now there were windswept white fields on the one side and the black cavernous hole of the pit on the other. No, he couldn’t have done that. What could he have said? And maybe he was imagining things here. Was afeared over nothing.

‘Round here’s about right.’

As Patrick’s voice brought everyone to a halt Bart turned, saying nervously, ‘You want me to help ’em load, Patrick? Where’s the stuff hidden?’ He faced the three men standing looking at him from a distance of a few feet away.

Patrick did not answer this, but what he did say was, and quietly, ‘How long have you known me, Bart?’

‘How long?’ He had to wet his lips before he could say, ‘Nigh on eight or nine years, maybe longer.’

Patrick nodded. Producing a small leather whisky flask from his pocket and taking several gulps he replaced the stopper and shoved it back inside his coat. ‘An’ would you say I’m a stupid man, Bart, or careless? Eh? Would you say that?’

The big fellow, Lenny, had moved round the far side of the horse and cart while Patrick had been speaking, and now Bart was effectively closed in by Lenny, the horse and cart, and Patrick and Wilf on the one side, and the abyss which was the gravel pit on the other. ‘Patrick, man . . .’ It was a whimper. ‘Look, I said I’d make it right. Anythin’ you want, anythin’.’

‘You’ve put me to a lot of trouble, Bart. You’ve taken my money an’ not delivered, an’ as for tonight . . .’

‘I’ll pay you back, man, you know that,
an’
I’ll get the bairns, both of ’em - all reet?’

‘That ’un back there’ll open her gob after tonight, you know that, don’t you? You’ll have a visit from the law come mornin’, sure as eggs are eggs, an’ what are you goin’ to say when they ask you about me, eh?’

‘Nowt, I swear it.’

‘Nowt.’ Patrick turned to the little fellow with the lump as he repeated again, ‘Nowt. Now from his own mouth the lass an’ her mam know nothin’ concrete about me, Wilf. Nothin’ they can prove, leastways.’ He laughed out loud, along with Wilf, and Bart forced a weak smile. ‘As I see it,’ Patrick went on, ‘the only one who does is our Bart here. An’ folk get jittery in a cell in the polis house. You ever noticed that, Wilf ?’

‘Oh aye.’ Wilf was still grinning widely, clearly enjoying himself. ‘Many’s the time I’ve seen it. Aye, I’ll grant ye that all reet, Patrick, man. I divvent know many as don’t. What say you, Lenny?’

There was just a grunt from the big figure behind Bart, but Patrick obviously took it for agreement, saying, ‘So we all see eye to eye. A feller’s entitled to protect his best interests, eh, Bart? I’d be daft to do different, an’ we’ve already agreed I’m not daft. An’, of course, there’s the little matter of this.’ He held up his hands, the palms and fingers raw and blistered and bleeding in places, for Bart’s eyes to inspect. ‘It’ll be a while afore these an’ me legs let me forget this night’s happenin’s. Yes, I deserve payment for this.’

Patrick made a sharp movement with his head, and before Bart could react he was grabbed from behind by a pair of massive meaty hands which pinned his arms to his sides as he was lifted right off the ground and held close to Lenny’s huge torso.

The same blind terror which had gripped the boy Bart now caused the man to lose control of his bladder. He tried to wrap his flailing legs round a stunted tree at the side of the cliff-like wall of the gravel pit but to no avail, and then Patrick and the little man were standing close.

‘Scared, Bart?’ Patrick gave a quiet, mirthless laugh. ‘You should be. These two know how to make it last a long, long time, an’ I’m goin’ to let them have their fun tonight, the way me body’s painin’ me.’ He took out his knife, and again he made the mirthless sound before he said, his voice even quieter but his words terrible-sounding to the petrified man, ‘You’ll be beggin’ me to finish you off with this afore they’re done, I promise you. An’ don’t worry about what you owe me, Bart. Those two lads of yours are brighter than you’ll ever be, an’ slippery into the bargain. I shall take them under me wing when you go missin’, out of the goodness of me heart like. They’ll train up right dandy, they will.

‘Gag him.’ This was to Wilf who promptly obeyed, stuffing a filthy neckerchief in Bart’s mouth before tying it in place with his muffler. ‘An’ move him over there a bit.’ He gestured a few yards ahead. ‘We don’t want to frighten the horse, now do we?’

‘But someone must know
something
!’

A week and a half had elapsed since the attack on Josie. Barney’s wedding was only three days away, but the main subject of conversation in the house in Spring Garden Lane was the same as it had been for the last eleven days - the disappearance of Josie’s father.

Barney, in particular, was tireless in his desire to bring about Bart’s arrest, and had travelled down to Sunderland three times in the days since that fateful night, harassing the police both in Sunderland and Newcastle and making a general nuisance of himself to those in authority.

Pearl had let it be known she was feeling distinctly neglected; Betty had taken it upon herself not to let Josie or Gertie out of her sight; Frank had begun to bolt both the front and back door every night - an unheard of occurrence - and Prudence had moved into lodgings the day after the attack when her part in the incident had come to light. She hadn’t tried to deny her involvement when Frank and Barney had put two and two together. She admitted that she had purposely made contact with Bart Burns, but maintained he had tricked her by telling her a pack of lies. Prudence’s absolute refusal to accept any blame for the subsequent events had made Barney see red, and the two of them had had a row which had rocked the house.

Prudence had left the next morning, white-faced but dry-eyed, and with not a word to anyone as she carried her bags out of the house. Betty had since heard from Mrs Middleton - whose work as a midwife took her far and wide - that the girl was lodging in a house in Oxford Street which was just a stone’s throw from the laundry.

Josie herself had felt considerably better about everything once she had emerged from the disturbing half-world into which the concussion had plunged her.

It had taken a few days for the effects of her harsh treatment at the hands of her father and Patrick Duffy to diminish, but even then she was still black and blue all over from her father’s fist in her face and her fall when she had been flung aside at Barney’s dramatic entrance into the hall. However, once her mind was her own again, Josie found she could cope with her physical state quite easily. Part of this was due to the overwhelming sense of relief she felt when a family conference a week after the attack decided her life at the laundry, should she return, wouldn’t be worth living with Prudence now estranged from them all. Josie didn’t let on to them that it hadn’t been too good before.

According to what Pearl had relayed to Barney, Prudence was effectively blaming Josie for most of what had transpired and was wallowing in self-pity. At least, that was the way Barney had interpreted whatever Pearl had said to him, hence the family conference. ‘You know Prudence has got a tongue on her at the best of times.’ Barney’s face had been grim. ‘And Josie’s been through enough lately. She’s not going back to the laundry for Prudence to make her life hell. And my dear sister is quite capable of doing that, as you well know.’ No one had argued with him and so that had been that.

Josie had made it plain she would look for work elsewhere as soon as she was fit, but for the moment the doctor had been quite explicit in his stipulation that his young patient must rest until he saw her again, which would be the Monday after Barney’s wedding. As Betty was determined to follow the doctor’s decree to the letter, there was nothing Josie could do but accept her enforced inactivity with good grace.

‘Most people’d be glad of the chance to sit with their feet up and be waited on,’ Barney had teased her on the night of the family conference once Frank and Betty had gone to bed, Frank being on the early shift at the pit. They were sitting by the kitchen range and Josie was warming her toes on the brass fender, having slipped off her heavy black boots. Barney had just made a pot of tea and with all the rest of the household in bed and only the light from a small flickering oil lamp and the rosy glow from the range to light the room, the effect was cosy. ‘But Betty tells me you’ve been trying to do this and that all day. Ants in her pants, Betty described it.’

Josie had pulled a wry face. For the first time in her life she had time on her hands and she had found she didn’t like the experience one bit. If Betty had let her help with the bairns or even do a bit of washing or cleaning it would have been different, but just to sit around all day . . . She couldn’t bear it. From being so tired she was asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow, she was now lying awake most of the night, listening to the others breathing! ‘I shall be glad when I’ve seen the doctor on Monday and can go back to normal,’ she admitted quietly.

‘Bored?’

‘Oh aye.’ It was said with feeling.

‘Not ready for bed?’

‘No.’

‘Fancy a chat?’

They had talked till gone one in the morning and when they’d realised what the time was, neither of them had been able to believe it was so late. Josie had found herself telling Barney all sorts of things she’d never revealed to anyone else; the misery and shame of her beginnings when she’d been forced to beg just to survive; her father’s brutality to them all and the times she could recall her mother being black and blue after one of his drunken bouts; her worry about the lads and the road her father was setting them on . . . And he, in his turn, had spoken of the horror which had gripped him the first time he had gone underground, the feeling that he was buried alive and the silent screaming in his head which had filled his ears with a deafening sound until he hadn’t known who he was or how to breathe.

It had been good that night, very good, Josie reflected now as she watched Barney frowning at the constable who had called to tell them the latest progress in the case. With her father apparently having vanished from the face of the earth, and Jimmy and Hubert following in his footsteps two days after the attack on Josie - something which made Josie and her mother, along with Vera and others in the know confident that Bart had spirited the lads away to quieter shores until the furore had died down - Vera had insisted that Shirley move into the house in Northumberland Place for the time being, and had arranged for the family’s meagre collection of furniture to be stored with a friend of hers.

Consequently, and for the first time since arriving in Newcastle, Josie’s mind was at peace about her mother’s well-being, and this had affected her whole attitude towards the attack.

Not so Barney. And it was Barney who now repeated, his voice urgent as he stared into the patient face of the middle-aged policeman, ‘Surely
someone
knows something? I just don’t believe two men and two lads can disappear so completely without someone seeing them or knowing where they are hiding. Josie’s father is well known in the East End, like this Duffy bloke. It’s one thing for Josie’s brothers to drop out of sight - one bairn is much like another - but not so the two men. Not from what Josie’s told me about them, anyway. And don’t forget I was here that night they had a go at the lass, and nasty isn’t the word for ’em. They can’t be allowed to get away with it. Someone knows where they are; I’d bet my life on it.’

‘If they do, they’re not saying, lad.’ The constable forbore to mention that with Patrick Duffy’s name featuring in this incident, he hadn’t expected anything else, from what his colleagues in Sunderland had known about the Irishman in question. Big fish in a little pond, had been the general comment, but a fish with sharp teeth and a long memory. True, the lass had never actually seen Duffy’s face - only her da’s - but she’d been adamant the other man involved in the skirmish had been Patrick Duffy. That being the case, all tracks would have been well and truly covered, and although the mention of that particular name had taken the incident beyond one of a normal domestic fracas, it had also immediately presented a new set of problems.

‘I don’t believe this.’ Barney sat back in his chair, his good-looking face set in a scowl of frustration. ‘Her da tried to kidnap her, for cryin’ out loud, and the man’s violent as well as everything else! You know what he did to her sisters.’

‘We know what Miss Burns
told
us he did to her sisters,’ the constable corrected gently, and as Barney reared up in his seat and opened his mouth, the policeman continued, ‘And I’m not saying we don’t believe this young lady, far from it, but believing is no good without proof, Mr Robson. Even the young lady’s mother hasn’t got that. And as for this other . . . gentleman, Mr Duffy, being involved, there are any number of folk who can confirm that he spent all that night in a certain public house in the East End of Sunderland, before retiring with a Mr and Mrs Gibson to their house in Bishopwearmouth, the latter being his sister, apparently.’