The Shop Girls of Chapel Street (27 page)

‘I didn't know that either,' Violet said gently.

‘I wasn't going to be cooped up in an institution after Mam died, was I?'

‘No, I can see that wouldn't have suited you. But what affects us is to do with your father, not your mother – if what I heard turns out to be true.'

‘Not that devil,' Stan said with a grimace. He thrust his hands in his pockets, scuffed at a stone with the toe of his boot then looked up at Violet as if half anticipating what she was about to say.

‘There's a rumour,' she said softly.

‘Just one? You're kidding me. From what I know, you could take your pick from at least a dozen.'

‘Such as?'

‘Such as, my father, Douglas Tankard, managed to get the sack from at least three different jobs – one as a miner down Hadley pit, one in a pawnbroker's shop in Welby and another here as a boiler man at Calvert's – and after that it was downhill all the way. Such as, he was a regular propping up the bar at the Green Cross when he should have been out looking for work. Oh, and not forgetting that he was well known as a ladies' man, which is something my poor mother had to put up with until the day he enlisted and disappeared out of our lives for good.'

Emboldened, Violet drew breath before going on to divulge what Ben had told her. ‘The rumour I'm interested in is that in 1914 your father, Douglas, had a love affair with my mother, Florence.'

Stan stared. Still with his hands deep in his pockets, he turned away then spun back towards her.

‘He gave her a bracelet.' She met his gaze and held it, along with her breath.

‘You don't say,' he murmured, his brain racing.

‘I don't know anything for certain, Stan. But I thought it was only fair to tell you.'

‘That there's a chance … they had a kid?'

‘It looks like it – yes.'

‘We could be brother and sister?'

‘
Half
-brother and
half-
sister,' she corrected, fixing him with a hopeful gaze.

Stan scarcely paused to consider Violet's startling news. ‘By Jove,' he said, a grin lighting up his puzzled face. ‘You and me could end up related. Blimey, Violet, that really would be a turn-up for the books!'

‘Seriously, you're pleased?' she asked uncertainly.

‘You bet! You're the nicest kid sister anyone could wish to have.'

‘Don't say anything about it – not yet,' Violet pleaded. ‘Wait until we're sure.'

‘When will that be?' Stan asked. He spotted his boss stepping off the bus at the stop outside the baths and making his way into work.

‘When we're sure of everything. It happened a long time ago, but I still don't want people calling my mother names she might not deserve, not until we have all of the facts.'

‘Will you tell Eddie?'

‘Yes, but only him. He'll help us sort it all out and with a bit of luck we'll be able to prove that the situation wasn't as bad as it seems at first glance.'

‘All right, cross my heart and hope to die – I won't breathe a word,' Stan promised before hurrying away to receive the expected telling-off from his boss.

After leaving Stan, Violet had no choice but to go back to work and deliver the package Ida had given her. She pedalled hard to the Kingsleys' house, forcing herself to concentrate on the task in hand and forget about her conversation with Stan. She arrived out of breath, and looked up at the Kingsleys' imposing, stone-built mansion set back behind privet hedges and overlooking a small tarn at the edge of the moor.
I only hope Mrs Kingsley is in
, she thought as she freewheeled down the drive.
Otherwise I've had a wasted journey.

The front door was firmly closed, but Violet followed an arrow indicating the tradesmen's entrance round the side. She dismounted then wheeled her bike into a cobbled yard with an old-fashioned coach house that had recently been converted into a garage for the Kingsleys' car. She could see through the open door that the car was missing, however, and once more prepared herself to return to Jubilee with Mrs Kingsley's new dress undelivered.

Then she caught sight of a figure looking out from a downstairs window in the main house and soon after that the side door opened and out stepped Colin Barlow. He was dressed for pheasant shooting in plus-fours and a checked, tweed jacket and he wore a look of eager expectation as he bore down on Violet.

‘If it isn't my favourite dressmaker!' he exclaimed, striding towards her. ‘Don't look so surprised, my dear. Monday is Kingsley's and my day for taking pot shots at a few innocent birds up on Brimstone Moor, followed by a couple of fine whiskies before supper.'

‘Good afternoon.' Violet hoped that her politeness, though stiff, would mask her increasing dislike for Barlow and her shock at finding him here. ‘I have a parcel for Mrs Kingsley.'

‘Not in, I'm afraid. And Thomas is busy with a telephone call at present.'

Boxing Violet into a corner of the yard, the mill owner's guest breathed whisky fumes into her face and she noticed that his speech was slurred. ‘Of course, I could do you a favour and take the parcel for you.'

‘Thank you.' Violet made an attempt to slip sideways out of the man's reach, intending to take the dress from the wicker basket attached to her front handlebars and hand it to him.

He blocked her way. ‘But then you would have to do me a favour in return.'

‘Please let me by, Mr Barlow.' Dislike slid into disgust, but still Violet had no clear sense of what he meant. What did he want from her?

‘Don't play the innocent,' he mocked, pressing in on her. Then, before she had a chance to realize what was happening, he pushed her back into the darkness of the garage, up against a brace of dead birds hanging from a hook to the left of the door. There were two guns propped against the wall and three more pairs of pheasants hanging from similar hooks.

Recoiling from a splash of cold blood that dripped from the head of one of the pheasants onto her raised hand, Violet retreated further into the garage with its smell of dirty engine oil and petrol from cans lined up against the back wall. Disgust swiftly became fear.

‘You understand me well enough – you know exactly what I mean,' Barlow sneered. His usually handsome face was shadowy and distorted by a crude eagerness to lay hands on his prize.

‘Don't you dare touch me,' she warned, her back to the wall as she slowly edged sideways away from him towards the daylight. Her foot caught one of the cans and it tipped onto its side with a loud metallic clatter.

Startled, Barlow lunged swiftly at the door and banged it shut. As he did so, he caught his cheek on one of the hooks, giving it a small nick. He yelped and swore, but was quickly calm again. ‘Don't make a fuss, Violet. We both know what has to happen here.'

She was trapped. They were in total darkness. ‘I've told you – leave me alone,' she insisted.

Recognizing that Violet was not going to willingly give in to him, Barlow dropped his attempts at persuasion and turned to brute force. He lurched at her and seized her by the shoulders, pressing her backwards with his forearm against her throat until they collided with the hanging birds that swung violently against her face, their feathers sticky with blood. His mouth made contact with her cheek then her mouth, lips on lips, his hands mauling her.

Violet recoiled and managed to place her palms on his chest, gaining leverage to push him off. Then she twisted and felt for the shotguns, took hold of one and instantly aimed it towards him.

‘You wouldn't …' he challenged, swaying unsteadily in the murk and hesitating to wrest the gun away.

‘I will!' she swore, though her hands trembled and her voice was faint.
I could shoot him through the heart
, she thought,
and the world would be rid of him. Good riddance.

‘No, you couldn't.' Sure of himself again, he laughed as he moved in towards her again.

He was right – Violet would never pull the trigger. Instead, she slid her hands down the long barrel and swung the gun at him like a club, catching him heavily in the ribs as he lurched towards her.

Barlow made a winded, groaning noise then bent double while Violet dropped the gun and fumbled at the door, searching for a handle. Finding none, she shoved against the door with all her might. It swung open and daylight flooded in. She fled from the garage, running for her bike and setting off across the yard with blood streaking her face and hands. Barlow stumbled from the garage behind her then he watched her gather speed up the drive. He stooped forward with one arm holding his side.

Inside the house, Thomas Kingsley came to the window of his study to watch Violet's hurried departure. Wondering what had caused the commotion, he quickly went in search of his shooting companion and, to his surprise, found him carrying the day's spoils out of the garage.

‘Where can I put these out of harm's way?' Barlow overcame the pain in his ribs to smile and hold the birds aloft. ‘We don't want them to scare the living daylights out of any more visitors, do we?'

So that was it
, Kingsley thought. Or at least that's what Colin wanted him to think and he was prepared to leave it at that. ‘Hang them in the keeping cellar, then clean yourself up and find me in my study,' he told his guest. ‘I have a very nice single malt that I'd like you to try – aged in an oak barrel on the Isle of Skye for fifteen years.'

Violet suspected there were some women who would have rushed straight to the police after what had happened at Ash Tree House, but she wasn't one of them. It would feel too much like a scene from one of Ida's murder mysteries and she couldn't stand having to answer questions or see the look of cynical disbelief on the policeman's face when she brought up Colin Barlow's name. And perhaps she was building it up in her own mind to more than it was. A man finds himself attracted to a young woman and naturally tries to follow it through. It happens all the time in pictures made in Hollywood – Clark Gable holds Claudette Colbert in his arms, she swoons, they kiss …

Even when she says no, as Violet had, it turns out she might not mean it. Sick to the stomach and confused by each turn of thought, she made slow progress through the streets. The incident in the garage dislodged everything else from her thoughts – the failed delivery of Mrs Kingsley's dress, even the family secret that Stan had sworn to keep earlier that afternoon. No – what she couldn't shift from her mind was the sense of Barlow's rough hands pawing at her and the feel of his lips pressed hard against hers.

‘A penny for them,' Marjorie called from her bakery-shop door.

Violet raised her hand and waved feebly without offering a riposte. Almost back at Jubilee, she steeled herself to act normally – to explain why she still had Ella Kingsley's dress in her basket and why it had taken her so long to fail to deliver it.

Stay calm. Pretend nothing happened. That's the ticket.

The shop bell rang. Clutching the parcel, Violet stepped into her warm cocoon of buttons and silks.

‘You took your time,' Ida said from behind the counter with hardly a glance at Violet.

‘Sorry – I was held up.' Violet's plan was to offer a bland explanation then retreat into the kitchen until her heartbeat returned to normal and she could tidy herself up. ‘Mrs Kingsley wasn't at home so I rode over to the mill to try to find her. She wasn't there either—'

‘Good heavens above, Violet!' Ida interrupted as she finished counting buttons and looked up at last. ‘You're covered in blood.'

Violet looked down at her hands. The pheasants' blood had dried darkest crimson, almost black on her fair skin. ‘I had an accident.'

‘Your face, too.' Ida came out from behind the counter and took the parcel from her.

‘It's nothing.'

‘Go into the kitchen and sit down. Let me make you a cup of tea.'

‘Honestly, it's not as bad as it looks. I'm not even hurt.'

‘And I'm not listening,' Ida insisted. Standing at the bottom of the stairs, she called up to Muriel. ‘Violet's back. She's had an accident. She says it's nothing but the poor thing looks as if she's seen a ghost.'

Within seconds Muriel had flown down from the workroom and both she and Ida began fussing over Violet, telling her not to mind about the undelivered parcel, making her sit down, giving her tea and fetching a warm cloth to wipe away the blood.

‘There are no scratches or cuts but you're shaking from head to foot,' Muriel murmured. ‘Are you sure you're all right?' She crouched beside Violet and gazed up at her as she sponged stains from her skirt.

‘I've had a shock,' Violet confessed, but what fell from her lips was not the name of Colin Barlow but that of Stan Tankard, even though she'd planned to keep their secret and intended only to tell Eddie when the time was right. ‘It turns out that Stan and I could be related.'

‘How? In what way?' Ida demanded.

‘Hush. Don't upset yourself,' Muriel said softly.

It all came out in a rush – about the bracelet and the note, Uncle Donald's warnings against taking up with Stan, the reasons behind him walking out on her after Winnie died. With the words came tears. They coursed down Violet's face, welled up and choked her until her confession was reduced to sobs and it was Muriel who put her arms around her and held her until she stopped.

‘There must be a birth certificate somewhere with the father's name on it,' was Eddie's first thought after Ida had found him working with his father on Ghyll Road and fetched him back to Jubilee to listen to Violet's news. He was calm and practical in the face of this latest crisis, though inwardly he was rattled by how close Violet had come to pairing up with Stan.

‘Not that I know of,' Violet said. ‘If it existed, it would've been in the wooden box in Aunty Winnie's wardrobe.'