Perseverance Street (18 page)

Lily and Dee entered the Canal Street post office and were relieved to find that it was almost empty. There was just one old man at the counter buying a dozen penny stamps. The woman behind the counter looked to be in late middle age and could well be a retired headmistress. Lily, whose turn it was to make enquiries, stepped up to the counter as the old man shuffled off.

‘Excuse me, but are you Mrs Harrison who used to be the headmistress at Jubilee Road School?’

‘Yes, I am.’

She looked at Lily through narrowed eyes as if trying to identify her. ‘Do I know you? Were you one of our pupils?’

Lily smiled and shook her head. ‘No, nothing like that. I’m trying to track down a man who used to work there. I don’t know his name, but I do know that he was a caretaker there about twenty years ago. I was wondering if you were there around that time?’

‘Twenty years
ago? Yes, I was teaching there then, and the name of the caretaker was Armitage, Bernard Armitage. What was it you wanted to know about him?’

There was a suspicious look on her face, as if she knew something about this Bernard Armitage and wondered if Lily did as well.

Dee spotted this look. ‘What was he like?’ she asked.

‘In what way?’

‘I mean, was he a trustworthy person?’

Mrs Harrison hesitated for a while before answering this. ‘No, I’m afraid he wasn’t. As a matter of fact he was sent to jail for stealing money from the school. That will have been about, let me see, ten or eleven years ago. I know he was sentenced to a year and I haven’t heard anything about him since then – due to lack of interest, mainly.’ She looked at Dee, quizzically. ‘Might I ask why you’re looking for him?’

‘I’ve had something very valuable stolen from me,’ said Lily ‘and I have reason to believe that he is the person responsible.’

‘Ah, I see. Well, I’ve pretty much told you all I know about him, which isn’t that much I’m afraid.’

Lily took the photograph of Oldroyd and his wife out of her handbag and showed it to Mrs Harrison. ‘This is a recent photograph of the man I’m looking for. Would you say this is Bernard Armitage?’

Mrs Harrison scrutinised the photograph. ‘It certainly looks like him, only he didn’t have a moustache back then and obviously he was a lot younger.’

‘Do you know anyone who might be able to tell us where he is now?’ Lily asked.

Mrs Harrison shook
her head. Another customer came in and was standing obediently behind Lily and Dee.

‘Do you mind if I serve this customer?’ said Mrs Harrison.

‘No, not at all,’ said Lily, ‘you’ve been a great help.’

Dee was tugging on Lily’s coat sleeve as they left the post office. ‘Hey!’ she said in a loud whisper. ‘We can’t leave it like that. We need to know more about this Armitage bloke. We need to know what he was like. The things he got up to when he was working at the school.’

‘Auntie Dee,’ said Lily, as they stepped into the street, ‘Mrs Harrison told us everything we need to know about this man. Bernard Armitage is obviously his real name – not Bernard Oldroyd or Arthur Williams – and he was sent to jail ten years ago for stealing money from Jubilee Street school in Bradford. All we have to do is pass this information on to Mr Bannister and let the police track him down.’

Dee gave a sigh and scratched her head. ‘Yeah, I suppose you’re right, girl. It’s just that over the years I’ve learned to have not too much faith in the coppers, which is probably my own fault as I’ve not given them good reason to have much faith in me.’

‘There’s no reason why we can’t continue to look for him,’ said Lily. ‘It’s just that the police should be able to find him a lot quicker than we can, and they’ve also got the authority to arrest him.’

Dee held up a finger
as if an idea had just struck her. ‘Give me a minute,’ she said and went back in the post office.

In less than a minute she returned. Lily raised questioning eyebrows.

‘Just gave her one
of me cards,’ said Dee, ‘in case she remembered anything. You never know.’

Millgarth police station was a stone’s throw away from Leeds open market and just around the corner from Union Street Baths where Lily had spent a lot of her childhood. It was Saturday morning. They’d called in to see DS Bannister but he wasn’t due in until the afternoon. Dee had gone for a scout around the antique shops. Lily had bought herself a swimming costume from the market and had gone for a swim, which was something she’d done quite regularly to get herself back to a reasonable level of fitness after her ordeal in Ecclestone House Hospital. She was changing into her costume in one of the poolside cubicles which afforded modesty from shoulder to ankle, when she spotted him diving in from a platform at the deep end. He surfaced and went into a fast crawl, taking no time at all to cover the twenty-five-yard length of the pool; possibly even faster than Lily, who had represented Leeds schools before the war.

She emerged from her
cubicle and walked to the shallow end, waiting for him to arrive at the end of his third length. She allowed him to touch and turn before she dived in and surfaced alongside him, taking up her stroke on equal terms with him. She had on a swimming cap, also bought from the market, so he didn’t recognise her, but he did recognise a challenge when one presented itself. He picked up his pace, which was matched by Lily, stroke for stroke. People by the poolside stopped to watch. Some swimmers got out and went up into the balcony for a clearer view. Rarely had Union Street baths seen swimmers with such obvious ability racing each other. The onlookers began to take sides, mainly cheering on Lily who was the obvious underdog and trailing by a yard or so after five lengths of racing. The fact that she was also an attractive-looking young woman helped encourage her supporters.

Lily was going flat out, hoping that the extra three lengths he had already swum might tire him out and allow her to catch him up and pass him. But, after another two lengths, it was obvious that this wasn’t going to happen. He now had a lead of three yards. Halfway down the pool he turned over on to his back to take a good look at this person with whom he’d been competing and he smiled when he saw it was a woman. He stopped swimming and allowed her to pass him at speed. She arrived at the bar, turned and noticed he’d stopped. He swam lazily towards her, still not realising who she was.

‘OK, you win,’ he said, drawing in deep breaths. I’m more of a hundred-yards man myself. You had me doing double that. Hang on. Don’t I know you?’

‘You’ve
met me, but you don’t know me,’ panted Lily. Her swimming cap disguised her long dark hair and he’d certainly never seen her in a swimming costume before. ‘You bought a ring for Beryl,’ she said, ‘only it turned out she wasn’t worth giving it to.’

His face broke into a broad grin. ‘Ah, the ring lady. You’re obviously better at swimming than you are at selling rings at a profit.’

‘I think I might have given you a better race a few years ago,’ Lily said.

‘You gave me a pretty good race just now. I couldn’t have kept up the pace much longer.’

‘Nor me,’ she admitted.

They both heaved themselves out of the pool, still attracting glances of admiration from the onlookers who were disappointed that the race hadn’t reached a proper conclusion. This time the admiration was not for their swimming prowess but for their good looks, which was unusual down at Union Street baths.

The young soldier’s body was hard and lean and tanned. He had a tattoo of a red rose on his right shoulder. In contrast, Lily’s body was pale and slim but with curves in the right places. Since leaving the psychiatric hospital she’d put quite a few pounds back on and regained some of the bloom to her cheeks. Together they made an attractive couple.

‘I suppose I’d better introduce myself,’ said the soldier. ‘My name’s Charlie, and you are …?’

‘Lily’

‘Well, Lily, I think I owe you an apology for being so ungracious about the ring.’

‘Apology accepted – and yes, you were a bit ungracious. Do I take it that you’ve managed to work out why we do it?’

Charlie nodded. ‘I’m guessing
that you’re appealing to the gambling instinct in people who know that there are odd items of genuine jewellery on your stall, which you don’t know about – only you do know about them, don’t you?’

Lily just smiled.

‘Only that doesn’t quite explain why you pointed the ring out to me.’

She pointed at his red rose tattoo. ‘Does this mean you’re a Lancashire lad?’

‘Born and bred in London,’ grinned Charlie. ‘We moved to Leeds when I was ten years old.’ He twisted his head towards his tattoo. ‘This is my freedom tattoo – Beryl hated ’em. I had it done the day we split up.’

‘Good job she hated them, eh? Otherwise you might have been stuck with her name on your shoulder for the rest of your life.’

Charlie laughed. ‘Hey! That’s true. Never thought of that.’

‘And how’s the Gold Star running?’

‘Ah, you remember. Oh, she’s a beauty. You’ll have to come for a spin one day – if you don’t mind riding pillion.’

Lily, who had been riding pillion less than an hour ago, made no comment. She knew this couldn’t have been anything other than a chance meeting, but it still seemed as if their paths crossing three times in just over a week was more than a coincidence. He was an attractive young man; a young man she could get on with, but she felt uncomfortable even contemplating this so soon after Larry, the father of her lost boys, had died. Charlie sensed he’d said the wrong thing and glanced down at her wedding ring.

‘Oh, sorry. I should
have remembered – you’re married. Look, I wasn’t trying it on or anything. I just—’

‘That’s OK. No offence taken.’

She smiled and dived in. He stood at the edge; watching her plough through the water; wondering whether to follow her, then he decided against it and went back to his cubicle. She was married. No future in that. Shame, though. She put Beryl Townsend into the shade, no doubt about that.

An hour later, Lily and Dee were standing at the desk in Millgarth police station, waiting to see Detective Sergeant John Bannister. He appeared behind them and invited them into a musty interview room, lit only by a high window that needed a good clean. They sat round a table. Lily took the photographs from her bag and placed them in front of him.

‘His name’s not Oldroyd, it’s Bernard Armitage,’ she said. ‘Ten years ago he was sent to prison for stealing money from Jubilee Street school in Bradford.’

Bannister picked up one of the photographs. ‘And where did you get this information from?’

‘From a Mrs Harrison who used to be the headmistress of the school before it was bombed in 1941. She works at the Canal Street post office in Bradford now. He was also recognised by an Ilkley woman called Rachel Clegg. He swindled her out of a lot of money last year. She knew him as Arthur Williams.’

‘I’d think with that sort of information dropping into your lap you should be able to find him quite easily,’ said Dee, without disguising the disdain in her voice. Lily threw her a glance of caution.

‘I’m aware
that you think I’m responsible for my son’s disappearance,’ she said to Bannister, ‘which is why your investigation is going nowhere.’

‘And why we’re having to do your bloody job for you!’ added Dee. ‘Lily’s applying for custody of baby Christopher, but while the responsibility for Michael’s disappearance is still hanging over her head like the sword of bloody Damocles it’s gonna make things difficult.’

Bannister knew that there was a lot of truth in what they said about the investigation, although he wasn’t about to admit it. He put the photograph back down on the desk and picked up a pen.

‘OK, I’ll run with what you’ve told me. First I’d like details of these women who appear to know him, and I’d like to know how you brought the photos to their attention.’

‘We had them published in a paper, like we wanted you to,’ said Dee pointedly.

Bannister ignored her dig at him. ‘Which paper was that?’

‘
Craven Herald
, last Thursday. Mrs Clegg rang us on Thursday evening. Recognised him straight off – as did Mrs Harrison when we showed her the photos. He didn’t have the moustache when they saw him but they’re sure it’s him. Amazing what you can do if you put your mind to it. You should try it some time.’

They were back at Dee’s house in Shipley when the phone rang. Dee answered.

‘Hello, Dee Maguire.’

‘It’s Mrs Harrison
from the post office. You came in yesterday enquiring about Bernard Armitage?’

‘I did, yes. Do you have anything for me?’

‘Well, I don’t know if it’s of any use but I have the address where he was living when he worked at Jubilee Street school in 1935. With me being the head mistress I had a ledger with the names and addresses of all the staff and co-workers. I rescued it from the rubble after the school was bombed.’

‘That’d be most
helpful,’ said Dee, sticking a thumb up to Lily who was wondering who it was. Dee picked up a pen and opened a notepad on the telephone table, repeating the woman’s words as she wrote. ‘“Bernard Armitage: Twenty-three Farrar Mount, Bradford four.” Thank you, Mrs Harrison, you’ve been most helpful.’

Twenty-three Farrar Mount was a substantial terraced house built of millstone grit, quarried from the moors to the west of Bradford, consisting of three storeys and a cellar. Dee drew the motorbike to a halt in a cloud of blue exhaust smoke and raised a staying hand to Lily who was getting out of the sidecar. There were times when Lily preferred the relative comfort it afforded compared to a pillion ride.

‘You wait there,’ Dee said ‘I know what him and his woman look like. If they see you, God knows what they’ll do. If one of them answers the door I’ll tell them I’m selling bargain jewellery which I’ve got in my vehicle – there’s some cheap stuff under your seat.’

‘What if someone else answers?’

‘Then I’ll just ask for Bernard, Bernard Armitage – as if I know him.’

‘And what if he comes to the door? What will you say to him, having asked for him by name?’