After Hours (25 page)

‘They will if they want to.' Duke still stared out through the net curtains at the row of narrow, terraced houses opposite. He thought back to Ernie's arrest; how they could snatch someone away and lock them up in the shadow of the hangman's noose for months on end, just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. If they could do it to poor Ernie, they could certainly do it to Rob.

‘Now, I said, get it out of your head that Rob's in for it. We gotta work out a way to make him come clean, that's what we gotta do.'

Duke turned towards her, heavy and slow. The sunlight showed every wrinkle, the unkindness of the years. ‘Annie, you don't think Rob done Wiggin in, do you?' There was panic in his eyes.

‘'Course he ain't. Rob ain't never picked on no one Wiggin's size in his whole life, you know that.' She was full of defiance, standing hands on hips.

Duke nodded. ‘That's true. Only there's his temper.'

‘Never,' Annie repeated. ‘So forget it, Duke.'

Duke sighed. ‘Right then, I'm off down Meredith Court,' he told her, ‘to see if I can catch the blighter in and talk some sense into him.' He went out into the passage and took his cap from the hook.

‘You want me to come along?'

‘No. Man to man is best,' he told her. ‘I ain't gonna pull no punches. The truth ain't that savoury, you can bet. He might not want you to hear.'

Annie tutted. ‘He needs a good thrashing, that Rob. At his age and all!'

Duke went over to the taxi depot, but missed his son by a few minutes. Walter had arrived back and let Rob go off for the morning to collect Amy Ogden and take her out for a spin. He told Duke he'd tell Rob to come straight over to Annie's place when he got back.

Meanwhile, Rob and Amy drove out of town in high spirits.

‘And I as good as told him he could sling his hook, bleeding nuisance!' Rob was boasting to Amy about the police visit. The car windows were open, the road ahead was dear, and though the day was heavy and grey, threatening rain, they'd both jumped at the chance to drive out into the Kent countryside and breathe some fresh air.

‘Bleeding cheek!' Amy agreed jauntily. She flung her hat on the back seat and leaned sideways out of the window. ‘What did Annie have to say?'

‘I ain't mentioned it to her.' Rob sat in his shirt-sleeves, enjoying the speed on the open downhill stretches.

‘The coppers ain't serious, then?' The wind whipped at Amy's hair, tugging it back from her round face. Rob had to veer into the side as a car approached from the opposite direction. ‘Watch out!' she cried. A hedge scratched at the side of the car.

Rob swerved into the middle of the road again. ‘I don't know if they're serious. I ain't a mind-reader.'

‘And did you tell them where you really was that night?' Amy's smile was suggestive. She faced into the wind once more.

‘Let them find out for themselves.' There was a patch of woodland ahead. Rob planned a short stop somewhere off the road. He noticed Amy's interest in her surroundings increase as he slowed the car to a steady ten miles per hour.

‘Ain't this grand?' She sat up straight and adjusted her tight blue skirt, wriggling to straighten out the creases. ‘Nice and shady, nice and quiet.'

‘Are you thinking what I'm thinking?' Rob leaned over as he steered the car on to a level verge; an area of grass backed by wild hops, blackberry bushes and hawthorn.

‘Oh, so now
I'm
the mind-reader, am I?' Amy liked to catch Rob out. He'd grow touchy and she would cuddle up to him and get the better of him. They would end up kissing and laughing at nothing. He had a handsome smile, and when he laughed, he would throw back his head and she would tickle his neck to make him laugh even more.

‘Rightio, then, we won't stop!' He began to edge the car back towards the road.

She flung out her arm and grabbed the steering-wheel, pouting at him. ‘Now, don't be like that, Rob. ‘Course I want to stop.'

He wrenched at the brake, leaving the car pointing nose down towards the road. Amy jumped out and stretched her arms above her head. ‘We can pick blackberries. She began to make for them through the long grass.

‘They ain't ripe.' Rob strolled behind, hands in pockets. ‘Come on, Amy.' He put an arm round her waist to lead her further into the wood. She pretended to resist and he felt he would like to kiss her then and there: she was warm and soft, her skin smelt of sweet, flowery perfume. He put his lips to hers.

After a while Amy pushed him back. ‘Not here, Rob. Let's go away from the road a bit.' She knew what the intense look, the close contact would lead to, and she invited it. Rob was a good lover, not too rough, not too gentle. He went directly for what he wanted, but he didn't leave her out of it. He knew she liked soft
words, and was neither too shy nor too selfish to deliver them. Lots of men never spoke at all when they made love; it left Amy cold. But not Rob. He was tender, and he made sure she had a nice time. Often, when they made their opportunities and she lay in his arms feeling that nothing in the world was nicer than this, she imagined she might actually be in love with Robert Parsons. But then she would gather her clothes and her thoughts about her and tell herself not to be silly; she'd known him as a pal all her life. Theirs was a pleasant arrangement, that was all.

This particular day ended badly, however. Their open-air love-making had been good, as usual, but heavy raindrops began to splash on to the leaves overhead, and they had to hurry to dress and get back to the car. Amy was still buttoning her white blouse as she ran. She jumped into the car while Rob went to the front to turn the starter-handle. Feeling the rain come down heavier, he wound and swore. The engine stayed dead. He turned again, the rain began to pour. Amy sat safe and dry inside, watching it run down the windscreen. She checked her lip rouge in her hand-mirror. Rob was a blurred shape through the downpour. The engine still refused to start.

For five minutes, Rob struggled on. Cold rain drenched his shirt and trickled down his face. He swore himself blue in the face. In the end, he gave in. He came and stuck his head through the window. ‘I have to get to a telephone.'

Amy sighed. ‘How long will that take?'

‘I don't bleeding know, do I?' He stood in the rain, dripping wet. She looked out and laughed. His dark hair was plastered to his skull. He glared at her, then strode off down the road in the direction they had come. It would take hours to sort this out; Walter would have to come out with a tow-rope. Amy would bleat on about being late back to Dickins and Jones. Before he knew it, the whole of Sunday would be wasted.

Eventually, after tracking down a telephone box and spending a wet afternoon cooped up in the car, alternately bickering and canoodling with the infuriating Amy, Rob spotted Walter's Morris come bowling down the hill towards them. The rain had eased,
and it wasn't long before the tow-rope was fixed and Walter had them facing in the direction of home.

‘Bleeding car,' Rob muttered. Walter had come up to his driver's window to check that everything was ready for the tow back to town.

Walter looked him in the eye. ‘We need a good mechanic, that's what.'

‘You can stow that for a start.' Rob picked him up in a flash. ‘If you mean Richie bleeding Palmer, I'd rather take a running jump first.'

‘Ain't no good
us
trying to tinker with these old engines, though.' Walter sounded as if he was only trying to be realistic. ‘Let's face it, Richie knew his way around them.' He seized his opportunity on Sadie's behalf as best he could.

Rob stared back. ‘Over my dead body.'

Walter sighed and went ahead to his cab. ‘By the way,' he called back, ‘your old man wants a word with you. He says it can't wait.'

Rob agreed to be towed through town, straight to Paradise Court. As he'd guessed earlier, the whole day had gone to rack and ruin. ‘Might as well get it over with, whatever it is,' he told Amy. They left behind the hedgerows and the woods for the lamp-posts and fire-hydrants of the urban sprawl. ‘We'll pop in there first off, then I'll nip you over to Regent Street in Walter's car.'

‘But I'll be late,' she complained. ‘I only signed out till five. You know how hard they came down on me last time.' She arched her eyebrows.

‘That was different,' he pointed out. ‘Now, don't go on about it, there's a good girl.' He concentrated on the task of easing the old jalopy on the end of a tow-rope down the narrow streets and byways of Southwark to Paradise Court.

Annie invited Amy to sit in the front room with her as Rob followed Duke down into the back kitchen. ‘Duke wants to have a chat,' she explained. She would sit with Amy, asking after her work prospects, reliving the old days on the market stall, while Duke sorted out the problem of the alibi with Rob.

Duke sat his son down at the scrubbed kitchen table, a stern look in his eye. He laid his cards on the table, explaining how Walter had seen fit to tell him the way police thoughts were tending over Wiggin's death. ‘And a good thing he did too,' Duke warned him. ‘Before you say anything against Walter, I wish to goodness you had a grain of his sense, Rob, I really do.'

Rob frowned and mumbled, ‘I don't see it's his business.'

‘Where's your common sense, Rob?' Duke pulled him up short. ‘Sometimes I think I ain't come down hard enough on you when you was young. Especially when you was sent home wounded, and we all had to pray for you to pull through. After that, I
know
I ain't come down good and proper, 'cos of what you went through.' He paused. ‘We was all soft on you then. I was about to say that I let you get away with murder.'

Rob frowned and shifted in his seat. ‘Oh, come on, Pa, you ain't saying I had anything to do with Wiggin?'

‘What am I supposed to bleeding well think? The coppers come sniffing round and you ain't got the nous to tell them where you was that night. No, you put their backs up good and proper. I call that well done, son. Bleeding well done.' Duke had worked himself into a state. His voice, usually quiet, low and steady, had risen. He slammed the table.

‘Pa!'

‘Don't “Pa” me! I ain't had my full say. Think about it, the copper goes back to Union Street. He gets the old files down. “Parsons . . . Parsons?” He looks you up. He sees the trouble we had over poor Ernie.'

‘That was donkey's years back. Anyhow, he got a not guilty.' Rob found his voice.

‘But mud sticks, don't it?' Duke wouldn't be shut up. ‘What do you want to do to this family, Rob? Drag us through all that lot again? Ernie can't stand no more, you know that. He had a shock, and he ain't never got over it, not altogether. Annie and me, we got to put him first if the coppers get on our backs. I'm telling you, son, I ain't gonna listen to no excuses, I'm just telling you to
get up that station first thing tomorrow morning, and tell them, word for word, what you got up to the night Wiggin copped it!'

Rob stood awkwardly, catching his leg on the table. ‘And if I don't?' he challenged.

Duke rose to his feet, looked at him fair and square. ‘Then you can say goodbye and we can say good riddance, Rob. 'Cos I ain't never gonna open this door to you no more.' His voice choked, his head dipped and shook sadly.

Stunned, Rob backed off. He mounted the step into the hallway, calling roughly for Amy to come. He was halfway to the door before Annie ran out, followed by a puzzled Amy.

‘Just tell him “yes”!' Annie pleaded. She caught Rob's arm from behind. ‘It ain't that hard, is it?' She'd guessed from the outcome of Duke's chat, Rob storming off like this, that he'd been stubborn and hot-headed as usual. ‘Think before you dash off and do something you might regret.'

Rob shook himself free. ‘It ain't me, Annie. I ain't got a word in edgeways.'

‘You don't have to. Just tell him the truth. Get yourself off the hook, for God's sake!' Annie felt acutely the pain of the family splintering and breaking up.

‘Tell him what?' Amy came slowly down the dark, narrow hall. She glanced back at Duke, standing head bowed in the kitchen.

Annie turned to her. ‘Try and talk some sense into him, Amy. Spell it out.'

Amy frowned and patted her hair. ‘I would if I could, Annie. You know me, always ready to help. But blow me if I got a clue what's going on round here!' She stood, left out, like an actor who's walked into the middle of the wrong play.

‘It's Rob. They're after him. They think he had something to do with Wiggin . . . you know!' Annie couldn't bring herself to say it out loud.

Amy's mouth fell open. She stared at Rob. ‘They think you done the old sod in?'

He made a move to grab her arm. She pulled back. ‘Amy!' he warned.

‘Yes they do!' Annie insisted. ‘Look at Duke. Look what it's doing to him. He can't stand it all over again, not after Ernie. It'll break his poor old heart.'

Amy drew herself up and walked slowly down to the kitchen. She saw Duke, the picture of misery. She knew she could sort it all out in a tick. ‘Don't take on, Duke.' She put a hand on his arm. ‘Ain't no need to worry.'

‘Easy to say,' he sighed. He cast a reproachful look at his son.

‘No, honest. Rob ain't had nothing to do with Wiggin being done in. It ain't possible.'

‘Why not?' Duke glanced up at Amy, his hopes revived.

‘'Cos he was with me,' she said, keeping her head up, spelling it out loud and clear. ‘He was with me all the time it happened. We spent the night together, Rob and me!'

‘What happens when Dickins and Jones gets to find out?' Annie turned to quiz Amy on their way up to Union Street station that Sunday tea-time. She knew the big West End stores liked to keep a strict eye on their living-in assistants. ‘What happens if they catch you hopping the wag?'