The Bad Penny (41 page)

He looked accusingly at Ellen as he spoke, certain that she knew more than she was telling. For a moment, Ellen stared back at him, then she heaved a deep sigh and spoke. ‘Well, I suppose it must be … oh, Darky, you’ve got to try to understand. Toby Rudd called this morning …’

Darky crashed both fists down on the table, the blood draining from his face. ‘I
knew
I were being a bloody fool to take meself off to Scotland for a week, lerralone three,’ he shouted explosively. ‘I s’pose you’re tryin’ to tell me that she’s run off wi’ the bugger. Well, I’m not having it; whether she knows it or not, it’s
me
she cares for,
me
she’s going to marry.’ He turned on his mother, his eyes flashing angrily. ‘And it weren’t only me, it were you! You said I were doin’ the right thing, you said give him enough rope and he’d hang himself, and now look where we are.’

‘Eh, you’ve a nasty side to your nature, Darky,’ his mother said placidly, wagging her head sorrowfully. ‘You don’t even know what’s happened to the girl and you’re turning round and tryin’ to blame someone else rather than facing up to facts and listening to explanations. No, don’t flare up at me,’ she added as Darky opened his mouth to speak, ‘let’s hear what young Ellen has got to tell us.’

Ellen smiled at Mrs Knight then started to speak. ‘The fact is that Toby Rudd came round this morning to ask for Patty’s help. A pal of his has been whipped into hospital leaving some work half done, from what I could gather, and Toby was asked to go and finish it off.’

Darky gave a sort of growl beneath his breath. ‘So what’s that got to do with Patty?’ he asked truculently. ‘I don’t see—’

Mrs Knight leaned across the table and shook a warning finger just under Darky’s nose. ‘If you don’t shut your gob I’ll give you a clack, big as you are,’ she said wrathfully. She turned to Ellen. ‘Carry on, queen. If there’s owt we don’t understand, we’ll ask you to make it clear after the story’s told.’

‘Thanks, Mrs Knight,’ Ellen said gratefully. ‘I’m not telling it very well because Toby was in a rush and seemed to think I knew more than I really did. But the gist of it was that he had to go away pronto and he wanted our Patty to man his shooting gallery this evening. He said it were a real emergency and if she couldn’t make it, he’d be letting all the fair folk down.’

‘And she agreed to go, knowing that Merry and me mam and me were coming home this evening?’ Darky asked incredulously. ‘Why, she left a note saying she’d be home sevenish.’

His mother opened her mouth but Ellen shushed her with a quick movement. ‘It’s all right, Mrs Knight. I’m afraid I got it all a bit haywire. I should have explained that Patty had already left for work when Toby arrived, so he asked me to give her a message if I should meet her, but then he decided that he needed to know her answer before he left so he got me to give him the name and address of the patient she was likeliest to visit first and went off at a gallop, heading for Number Five, Ellesmere Court.’

‘I … see,’ Darky said slowly. A frown creased his brow; he was obviously thinking hard. ‘But what good would Patty be on a shooting gallery? She can’t shoot, can she?’

Ellen giggled. ‘It isn’t like that. Patty’s been helping out at the shooting gallery ever since Christmas – he’s an old friend, after all – so she knows what to charge and how to load the rifles and so on. I think it would be fair to say that she can manage the gallery as well as Toby can himself, and it isn’t difficult. Why, a couple of times young Maggie’s given him a hand and she’s only a kid.’

She looked expectantly at Darky, who nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I can see she’d help out a pal at a difficult time,’ he admitted grudgingly. ‘But surely she’d have left us some message?’ He turned to his mother. ‘Can you credit it, Mam? That Patty would just go off to the fair, knowing we was coming home, without so much as a word? From what young Ellen tells us, she might well not have even known Toby had been to number twenty-four first, especially if he met her in a house full of squalling kids. I mean he’d just be intent on getting her full agreement.’ He put both hands over his face and rubbed vigorously, then got up. ‘I’m going over to New Brighton,’ he announced. ‘I can’t imagine that the fair will be going strong in weather like this, but at least if Patty’s there I’ll be able to find out just what has been happening and what lies Rudd’s been telling her, because there’s something strange going on and I mean to get to the bottom of it,’ he finished grimly.

He got up from the table as he spoke and went over to the door where he began to struggle into coat, cap and boots. ‘I think you’re doin’ the right thing, son,’ Mrs Knight said approvingly, as Darky seized his scarf and wrapped it around his throat so violently that he looked as if he were trying to strangle himself. ‘But don’t go bawling the poor girl out the minute you see her, because you’re quite right on one thing: there’s no way Patty would have gone off without leaving a message for us. She might have pinned a note to the door and it might have got torn off by the wind, or she might have given a young lad a message and he got the wrong address. Oh, there’s a million things that might have happened and one thing that might not; no way would Patty have left us to stew.’

Darky was snatching the door open but he turned to grin at his mother as she spoke. ‘Haven’t I been saying that all along?’ he asked. ‘I knew Patty wouldn’t let you and Merrell down, even if she fancied a bit of worry would do me good! As for bawling her out, what do you think I am?’

‘I think that you’re a hot-headed young fool who’s been cutting off his nose to spite his face ever since Patty moved into Ashfield Place,’ Mrs Knight said, raising her voice to a shout as Darky opened the door and the rain and wind swirled in. ‘But take care, son – and good luck!’

Darky ran down the stairs and across Ashfield Place. The weather was as bad as he had feared, making him more certain than ever that the fair would have been forced to close by now, even if it had opened earlier in the evening. As he sloshed his way through the puddles towards the tram stop, he told himself with mordant humour that he had often thought that he would go through fire and water for Patty, but had not expected to do it literally – the water part, anyway. He hoped that the ferries would be running, but suddenly began to doubt it; it was perfectly possible that they would not set sail in such conditions. In that case his trip would be abortive – unless, of course, he decided to swim it. But keen though he was to know what had happened to Patty, he did not really anticipate diving into the surging waters of the Mersey to find out.

When he reached the main road, however, he discovered he was in luck. A tram was bearing down upon him, its destination the Pier Head. He climbed aboard, handed over his fare and asked the conductor in tones which he strove in vain to keep casual whether the ferries were still running.

‘I guess they is,’ the conductor said easily. ‘It’s a wild night, sure enough, but the tide’s on the ebb and there are shift workers wantin’ to get across to Levers and the docks and such. The ferries don’t usually stop going across except when the sea’s terrible rough.’

Darky thanked him, chiding himself for having had to ask. After all, he himself caught the ferry in both directions every working day, and though the boat might be late, he could not remember a time when he had been left on the wrong side of the water. Sure enough, when he reached the quayside, the ferry was just about to depart. Darky shouted and gesticulated and just managed to get aboard by the skin of his teeth, settling down to make the best of an extremely uncomfortable journey.

Two hours later, he threw open the door of No. 23 once more and trudged heavily into the kitchen. ‘Any sign of her? Any news?’ he asked in a weary voice.

Mrs Knight shook her head. ‘There’s been no word and it’s clear from the look on your face that she weren’t at the fair. So where is she, Darky? Were the fair folk able to tell you?’

‘No, no one knew. All they could say was that she hadn’t been to the fair at all, to their knowledge. But since the really bad weather started at around five o’clock, they were mostly tucked up in their caravans and wouldn’t have seen Patty if she had turned up. To tell the truth,’ he added, collapsing into one of the fireside chairs, ‘they seemed right surprised that Toby should have asked her to give an eye to the shooting gallery. The old woman I spoke to said that though Friday and Saturday nights are quite lively, the rest of the week is so poor at this time of year that only the really big attractions bother to open, and not all of them, either. Which means that Rudd could have gone off and left the shooting gallery unattended without letting anyone down, or being in any way worse off.’

‘Then why on earth did he ask her give up her evening and go over to New Brighton?’ Mrs Knight asked, her voice bewildered. ‘There ain’t no sense in it, son.’

‘Oh yes there is,’ Darky said grimly, holding out his hands to the blazing fire. ‘I’ll take a bet it were done to show me whose girl Patty really is. In other words, he were proving that Patty thought so much of him that she’d miss our homecoming, just for his convenience. Well, it didn’t work, because Patty never turned up at the fair, I’m sure of it.’

‘Then what’s happened to her?’ Mrs Knight wailed. ‘You don’t think she went off with him?’

‘If she did, he bleedin’ well abducted her, because there’s absolutely no way that Patty would have left Liverpool on the very day that Merry came back from Scotland,’ Darky said positively. ‘And if he’s abducted her, and I know my Patty, he’ll suffer for it.’

‘If there’s been any hanky-panky, you ought to go to the scuffers,’ his mother said decidedly. ‘Abducting young females is illegal, and even if he’s only tricked her into going away with him, the scuffers ought to know about it. Besides, you don’t know she’s with him. Why, she might be lying in a hospital bed somewhere, not knowing who she is or where. Have you thought of that, son?’

‘I’ve thought of nothing else ever since finding she wasn’t at the fair,’ Darky admitted. He glanced around the kitchen. ‘Where’s Ellen, by the way?’

‘Gone home to bed. She’s on call tonight,’ Mrs Knight said briefly. ‘Are you going to the scuffers or aren’t you, lad, because if you’re froze I’ll make you a quick cup of tea and then I’ll nip along to the station meself.’

Darky heaved a sigh and got to his feet. ‘I’ve already been to the scuffers; a fat old sergeant wrote all the details down and said he’d put the word about that a young woman was missing, but he didn’t seem particularly worried. He knows Patty, you see, and thinks her far too capable to be taken in by a rogue like Rudd.’ He did not add, as he might have done, that the sergeant had reminded him of the white slave trade and of Patty’s long blonde hair, because he knew that such a remark would terrify his mother and with cause. He had been terrified himself when the sergeant had advanced his theory. Then he had remembered that Patty would have been in uniform and his fears receded slightly. A district nurse was far too obvious to be carried, unconscious, down to the docks. Someone there would certainly be suspicious and would doubtless alert the authorities.

‘Then if you’ve been to the scuffers, where are you going now?’ his mother asked, rather plaintively, as her son settled his cap firmly on his head and turned towards the door. ‘There’s no point in wandering the streets.’

‘I’m going to the hospitals,’ Darky told her. ‘It’ll be easy enough to find out whether she’s been admitted. Young women in district nurse’s uniform aren’t exactly ten a penny.’

‘I wish I could come along o’ you, so’s we could split the hospitals between us,’ Mrs Knight said ruefully, ‘but I’ll have to stay to keep an eye on Merrell. I couldn’t let Ellen take her in case she’s called out, so Merry’s still in the truckle bed in my room.’

‘It’s all right,’ Darky said, glancing at the clock as he began to open the door. It was getting on for half past ten and he was already weary to the bone, but he knew he would not stop hunting until he had found Patty. ‘Don’t wait up for me, Mam. I may be gone a while.’

Toby had actually got the galloper back into working order before darkness fell and could have set off at once to get back to New Brighton before the fair opened for the evening. However, in such vile weather, he knew very well that no one would bother to open up the attractions. He had not managed to get hold of Patty, but of course Ellen might easily have done so, in which case he had no doubt that Patty would be at the fair right now. He hoped that she would take shelter in the green caravan or, at any rate, with one of the other fair folk, because he really did not want her dancing attendance on the Knight family, the way she had done before he came on the scene. Toby would have said that he did not have a jealous bone in his body, but he did acknowledge that it worried him a little that Patty was so thick with her next-door neighbours. Suppose the charms of Mrs Knight and the little granddaughter she had taken to Scotland with her proved greater than those of Toby and the funfair? Although Toby continually stressed the fact that he was her oldest friend, he acknowledged secretly that she must know the Knights a good deal better than she knew him.

So, ‘all’s fair in love and war’, Toby had told himself when he had formulated the plan to keep Patty by his side on this most crucial of days – the day that the Knights came back from Scotland. Of course he had not been able to be present himself because of the desperate SOS from the Flanagans, but he had done the next best thing; he had commandeered Patty to run his sideshow and was sure she would not let him down – not if she got the message, that was. If only he could have spoken to her himself, he just knew she would have promised immediately, but it seemed that Ellen had been mistaken in her assumption that Patty would go first to Ellesmere Court. When he had got there, the child who answered the door had said that Nurse would not be along before noon. ‘Me mam’s gone to see Auntie Ivy what’s gorra poorly chest,’ the child had told him, taking a swipe at his nose with the ragged sleeve of his jumper and leaving a sticky path across one cheek. ‘Is there a message?’