Love Changes Everything (19 page)

Realising that Fred had got the better of him and that there was nothing he could do about it, he dismissed it from his mind, turned up the collar of his jacket, and set off for home.

The sound of Cilla sobbing and her repeating Trixie's name over and over again in a high-pitched monotonous wail as he reached his own home and let himself in, added to his irritation.

‘Can't you keep that drippy idiot quiet?' he thundered the moment he walked into the room. He glared at Maggie as he shrugged off his jacket and settled down in his armchair, loosening the laces of his boots and kicking them off.

‘She's missing our Trixie and so am I,' Maggie retorted. ‘I think it's about time you told me what's happened to her. I don't like the rumours I've been hearing,' she added darkly.

‘Bloody gossip, you mean, don't you?' he muttered. ‘Women with nothing better to do but stand jangling to each other instead of minding their own business.'

‘Is it gossip, though, or is it the truth what people are saying about our Trixie?' Maggie said, her voice shaking as she confronted him nervously.

‘How should I bloody well know?' he sneered. ‘I'm too busy grafting to put food on the table to listen to such tales.'

‘What about when you go to the pub? What are the men in there saying, or haven't you dared tell any of them that you've sold your daughter into slavery?'

‘What the hell are you on about?' Sam snarled. His face was red and his eyes hard and menacing. Maggie knew that any minute now he might lash out and she was bracing herself for the impact of his fist when it landed.

Sensitive to the tense atmosphere, Cilla began banging with her fists against the door and crying uncontrollably. Before Maggie could do anything to stop him, Sam was out of his chair and across the room and had picked up the child by the scruff of her neck and thrown her out of the room on to the landing.

As he slammed the door shut, leaving her out there in the darkness, her screams became so ear-piercing that other people living in the house started shouting out to them to do something to shut her up before they called the scuffers.

As Maggie rushed to rescue her, Sam's hand went out to grab hold of her and stop her.

‘Leave me be,' she hissed. ‘You know Cilla's terrified of the dark; she'll go demented shut out there on her own,' she said opening the door for Cilla to come back into the room. Cilla ran to the corner of the room and sat there, clutching Bonzo and rocking back and forth.

‘She's barmy already,' he guffawed. ‘Wonder who the hell it is she takes after?'

Maggie paused and looked at him with real hatred. ‘She's your child,' she commented quietly. ‘Before you went off to war you were a loving father, always taking our Trixie on your knee and making a fuss of her. It might help if you did that with Cilla instead of spurning her and bawling and shouting at her, like you do the rest of us.'

‘The less I see of her the better I like it,' he stated coldly. ‘When I went into the army I left behind a comfortable home and a wife and daughter I could be proud of, and after fighting in mud and muck for the sake of my country I come back to a shambles. Living here is not much better than being over there in the trenches. We scrimp and scrape to make ends meet and when you're not moaning about things I have to put up with you nagging me about something or other.'

‘If you didn't spend half your wages down at the boozer then we wouldn't have to scrimp and scrape,' she rejoined pointedly. ‘Without my share of Trixie's wages coming in each week I'm going to be worse off than ever.'

‘How the hell do you make that out?' he demanded, staring at her angrily. ‘You'll have one less mouth to feed, so you don't need as much money, you daft ha'porth.'

‘And one less pair of hands to help me look after little Cilla. Do you ever stop and think how much of my time she takes up? I have to wash and dress her, cut up her food for her and keep an eye on her every minute of the day.'

‘You fuss over her far too much. She's big enough to start doing things for herself. The more you wait on her, washing her and combing her hair, the less likely she is to try and do it for herself. She'll soon find out how to get the grub inside her when she's hungry enough. Stop treating her like a two-year-old. She's turned seven and she ought to be at school like other kids.'

‘In her state! She can barely walk more than a few yards unless someone is holding her hand.'

‘No, and that's because you push her everywhere in that damn pram. Make her use her legs.'

‘Perhaps if you showed more interest and took her out for a little walk now and again it would help—'

Maggie's words were cut short by a slap across her face that brought tears to her eyes but in no way stopped her diatribe.

‘God only knows what you've done with our Trixie but, believe me, I will find out. If she's come to any harm then heaven help you, Sam Jackson, I'll get my revenge.'

He stared at her in surprise; disconcerted that she dared to answer him back. ‘What the hell do you think you can do to hurt me, you silly bitch?' he asked scornfully.

‘I'll go to the police and when they hear about the way you're always knocking us about then if Trixie doesn't turn up safe and sound or something terrible happens to her, you'll get strung up for murder,' Maggie threatened.

Sam didn't answer. As he made to walk away Maggie once again grabbed hold of his arm and stopped him. ‘Is she with that fellow Fred Linacre? If she is, then I want to know where he lives; I'm going round to see if she's all right and—'

He shook himself free, pushing her away so hard that she lost her balance and crashed backwards into the wall. By the time she'd recovered her breath and managed to pull herself together he'd left and slammed the door.

Andrew Bacon compared the time on the bank's wall clock with his own pocket watch, and then once more checked the ledger in front of him to make sure every detail was correct. Satisfied, he carried it over to the big iron safe that dominated one corner of the office and carefully locked it away.

Returning to his seat at the counter he made sure that all his pens and pencils, date stamp, roller and ink pad were neatly aligned before he left for the day.

It had been a strange few weeks. He had started the new year off in good spirits after one of the most enjoyable weekends he'd had for a long time. He usually went out with Jake and one or two of their friends, chaps who'd been at school with them, but this had been different.

For a start it had been New Year's Eve and he'd gone with Jake and his sister and Trixie to a dance and he was certainly glad that he had. Afterwards they'd gone down to the Pier Head as the ships all sounded their hooters and sirens and they had joined in all the revelry.

He'd never had much to do with girls, but Trixie was different. She was pretty, for a start, and she was so easy to talk to, not like the prim, prissy girls who came to the night-school classes he attended, or the loud-mouthed girls he'd known at school. He'd enjoyed the evening. So much so that he'd asked her if he could take her to the pictures.

She'd agreed to think about it and to see if she could get out to meet him. Then they'd made an arrangement through lvy and Jake to meet up on Wednesday so that they could finalise the arrangement.

When Trixie hadn't turned up on Wednesday night, though, he'd felt peeved. He was sure she liked him and he wondered why she was being quite so reticent.

He hadn't said anything about it to Jake because he'd felt such a fool at being stood up, but he wondered if he should mention it to him when they met tonight in order to satisfy his curiosity about why she'd done it.

Trixie and Jake's sister were such good friends that she was bound to have said something to Ivy about it and that was probably the only way he'd ever find out.

To his surprise, he found Jake waiting outside, lolling up against the bank wall smoking a cigarette.

‘Talk of the devil.' He grinned as he went up to him. ‘I was just thinking of you; there's something I want to ask you,' Andrew said.

‘Something I want to ask you as well, mate. Have you time for a quick jar?'

‘This time of day! All right, I'll have a half,' he conceded when he saw the look of impatience on Jake's face.

Once they'd got to the pub and ordered their beer, they carried their drinks across to a quiet corner. ‘You first,' Jake said.

‘No, mine is not all that important; let's hear what's worrying you?'

‘Ivy asked me to have a word with you; it's about Trixie. I believe she was supposed to be meeting you or going to the pictures with you last Wednesday.'

Andrew look startled. ‘It was about Trixie that I wanted to talk to you,' he said, picking up his beer and taking a drink.

‘Go on, then, what've you got to say? Trixie's mum is going out of her head worrying about her, what happened?'

‘Happened?' Andrew looked puzzled. ‘Nothing happened; she never turned up. I was wondering why and I thought she might have said something about it to Ivy.'

It was Jake's turn to look mystified. ‘Ivy hasn't seen her and her mam's been round to our place to see if we know what's happened to her. It seems that last Saturday her old man took her somewhere and didn't bring her back—'

‘And you're saying that she hasn't been home since?' Andrew interrupted.

‘No. There's a bit more to it. Her old man insisted on her taking her clothes with her . . .'

‘You mean he chucked her out? Why?' Andrew felt uneasy as he recalled Trixie telling him that her father probably wouldn't let her go to the pictures, particularly if he knew it was with a boy, and he wondered if it had anything to do with that. He was brought back to the present as Jake went on. ‘He didn't exactly chuck her out, but last Saturday Trixie was sacked from the biscuit factory where she worked with our Ivy, and instead of flying off the handle as they thought he'd do, her dad told her that he had another job lined up for her. He ordered her to pack her things and said he'd take her there. The trouble is he won't even tell Trixie's mum where it is.'

Jake held up his hand as Andrew was about to speak. ‘Hold on, hear me out. The foreman at the factory told Trixie she was getting the push because they were cutting back; “last in, first out”, you know the drill. Ivy says that a new girl started there on Monday to replace her, so that was a cock and bull story.'

‘What's that got to do with Trixie disappearing?'

‘The foreman, Fred Linacre, is a boozing pal of Trixie's dad. He lives on his own and Trixie's mum thinks she's been taken to his place. What's more, she's convinced that she's being held prisoner there.'

‘Bit far fetched and over the top, isn't it? I mean, who'd do a thing like that?'

‘Trixie's dad, seemingly. He'd been given money to make sure she went wherever he's taken her or so her mum claims.'

‘Why doesn't her mother do something about it, like tell the police or go and fetch her home?'

‘That's the problem. None of us know where this Fred Linacre lives but we thought you might. It's quite probable that he puts his money in your bank and, if he does, then his name and address will be on the bank's records.'

‘Giving out that sort of information is more than my job's worth,' Andrew said quickly, fingering his collar uneasily at the thought of the implications involved.

‘That's what I told Ivy, but she said that if you thought anything at all of Trixie then you'd want to help. It seems to be the only option open to us, mate; her mum really does think she might be in grave danger.'

Chapter Seventeen

Andrew couldn't stop thinking about how Trixie might be in real danger. It seemed all very strange to him that there was a possibility that her father was making her live with this Fred Linacre like Ivy claimed, but then there were some odd people living around Scotland Road.

Finding out the address where this man lived and then passing it on to Jake or Ivy was out of the question. If it was ever found out that he'd done something like that then he'd be in serious trouble. He'd not been making an excuse when he'd told them that he really could lose his job.

There must be some other way that wouldn't jeopardise his career, he reasoned. Perhaps finding out the address and then going there himself might be the answer. That was risky, but if he acted sensibly, simply walked along the street and took stock of the house, it might give him a better idea of the situation.

It took him most of the day to gain access to the file he needed because even to do that he had to be very discreet so as not to arouse anyone's suspicion.

He didn't know Cavendish Road except by name – although, since it was off Scotland Road, he'd probably been down it many times. He resolved he would check it out when he finished work that night and casually walk past number twenty. If the house looked suspicious or run down and scruffy, and he thought there was a possibility that Trixie was in danger, then somehow he'd find a way to let Jake know.

To his surprise, the number he'd memorised wasn't a house at all; it was a door wedged in between two shops; one an ironmonger's and the other a furniture shop. He presumed the door must lead into a passageway or else a staircase which would give access to the living quarters above the ironmonger's shop. It was obvious from the lighted windows that the furniture shop used their upstairs as a part of their sales area.

Although he walked past several times, it didn't help at all because he couldn't really tell what was up above the ironmonger's. To get a better view, he crossed over the road a little further down and then turned and walked back.