Midnight on Lime Street (6 page)

‘But—’

‘Shut up, Phil. We’ve miles to walk.’

‘But what if—?’

‘Shut up. Like I said, we’ve miles to go.’

He was right, of course. The school was south of Liverpool, and they had to get north of the city via a circuitous route, since they needed to stay away from populated areas to avoid being
noticed.

‘We’re getting nearer,’ John told them. ‘Another hour or two, and we’ll be there.’

The other pair stopped dead in their tracks. ‘What happened to the stammer?’ Phil asked, wiping sweat from his brow.

‘I’m n-nearly OK away from them bastards. As long as you don’t talk about it, it’ll g-g-go away.’

They stopped for a rest in a little copse outside Netherton. ‘We’ve passed it twice,’ John told them, ‘but that was so we could avoid houses and th-that. We should be
there before dark. There was a p-paraffin stove and mattresses last time m-me and me mates went in. Sacks and blankets and boxes of stuff and tents, too. Unless they’ve been back and t-took
them away, like.’

‘Or they might come for them while we’re there,’ Ian said.

‘Chance we’ll have to take,’ was Phil’s expressed opinion. ‘We won’t be there at night, anyway, cos we’ll be out on the rob looking for disguises and
stuff. We might have money for paraffin, but we’ll need to dress up when we go for it. During the day, we’ll take turns to be lookouts.’

‘Oh, bugger,’ Ian exclaimed. John was snoring. ‘We’d best sleep, too. If we move about after dark, there’ll be less chance of being noticed.’

They slept, though not deeply. Inside three heads in the small copse, images played in full colour and with sound. Healey, Ellis and Moorhead were up to their tricks in the teachers’ rooms
near the dorms. The boys saw, felt and heard all they had endured, and, when they woke from time to time, relief was their main emotion. What they failed to realize was that these nightmares could
last a lifetime, and they would never be completely free, since a part of each soul had been excised by evil men of God.

When darkness descended and spread its blanket over three damaged boys, they skirted the edge of a housing estate, Phil and Ian leaving John with their bags of loot while they slipped in and out
of gates gathering forgotten washing from quiet gardens. When the stealing was over, they re-joined John, renamed Stam since he now had just half a stammer. ‘Ian,’ Phil asked,
‘why did God let all that bad stuff happen to us?’

‘He didn’t.’ Ian was sorting socks in near-darkness. ‘Where’s this bloody hut, Stam?’

‘Other side of them trees. What do you mean, He didn’t?’

‘We got free will and some of us choose to do bad things.’

‘But He could have stopped it,’ John said.

Ian threw the socks in a bag – has task was hopeless in the dark. ‘Look, everything bad in the world is done by us, by people. He gave us a beautiful planet, a set of rules and free
will. Some people are crap. Healey, Ellis and Moorhead are bad, but they could stop being bad if they wanted to. Even diseases are our fault, because we don’t live right. Now, pick these bags
up – remember, we need some proper sleep.’

Phil shook his head. ‘How do you know all this stuff, then?’

‘Books. You know, them things in the library with pages of writing in ’em. We don’t all stick to the
Beano
and the
Dandy
, you know. Come on, shift your
arses.’

They dragged sore feet across the last few hundred yards. The door of the hut wasn’t locked, and the three boys literally fell in, hit the floor and slept. This was night one of freedom.
There was a great deal to be done before they got caught, and they needed a long rest. Tomorrow, their scribe would begin letting the world know about the Brothers Pastoral.

*

Helen Carrington pushed her Silver Cross pram into its resting place. She closed the door of the Anderson shelter and applied the padlock before turning towards the house.
Ignoring front and rear entrances, she descended cellar steps and reached her own domain. Everything she needed was to hand in her basement flat. When her filthy clothes were locked in a
seafarer’s trunk, she ran a bath and immersed herself in tepid water; it had been one purgatory of a day.

There was no further news about Jean Davenport, a young mother whose corpse had been found near the river. Quick Mick had died in hospital; even the two young constables had shed tears.
Thirty-nine years of age and the product of battling parents who had died when he was in junior school, Mick had managed to murder his own liver. Constables Earnshaw and Barnes, currently on night
duty in the Lime Street area, had both expressed the intention to attend Mick’s funeral even at the expense of much-needed sleep.

‘They’ll be on days soon,’ Nellie mumbled to herself, ‘or they could be sent to patrol the riverside in case Jean is a serial killer’s first.’ She scrubbed
her flesh with a loofah. For how many years had she led this strange life? Five, six? She climbed out, dried herself and donned a clean, white nightdress.

When she returned to the large living, sleeping and kitchen area, one of her sisters was there with food. ‘If you don’t empty this plate – and I don’t mean in the bin
– I’ll be displeased.’

Helen stuck out her tongue.

‘Infantile,’ Beatrice said. ‘I’m off to bed.’

Alone, Helen ate the ham salad. Eating was hard work on a hot evening.

She thought about Quick Mick, who had gone from quick to slow, from slow to death. ‘The quick and the dead,’ she muttered through a mouthful of lettuce. ‘Am I doing any good at
all out there?’ She was. She should pull herself together and thank goodness that Mick was no longer in pain. Runaways had been saved and taken home or to places of safety. Three alcoholics
had gone for treatment, and one of those had turned his life round. Mick and another were dead, but a third man was very much alive, working and happy.

Oh well. Another day tomorrow, stinking clothes and that silly pram. ‘God help me,’ she begged. ‘I’m not as young as I was.’ As soon as her head hit the pillow, she
fell asleep.

‘Look, it’s a goer, I’m telling you. Only do you think you could take your foot away from my face? It stinks like fish gone bad. How many days have you had
them bleeding socks on? Go back to sleep, you’re getting on my wick.’ Roy Foley pushed Billy Tyler’s leg away.

‘I can’t help it,’ Billy moaned. ‘We’re like a full tin of sardines in this bed. How am I supposed to get clean clothes when I can’t go home? We’ve been
stuck here for weeks now, babysitting weed. And it’s roasting when them bright lights are on.’ He sat up. ‘And we’ll go to prison if we’re found out. Or when they
start pulling the houses down. We’ll have to shift all this stuff somewhere else, and—’

‘Shut your face.’ Roy rolled off the bed. ‘Listen, we’ll get thousands off the resin. Like I said, it’s a goer, and I know how to make it. We can cut it with
anything brown, even dog shit. Holy Mary and Dopey Ginger can arrange to sell it, because nobody’ll suspect them two daft buggers. We’ll be millionaires.’

Billy sniffed. ‘Can’t we be millionaires with two beds instead of one?’

‘Not yet. If we get found out for using electricity from the street lights, we’ll be buggered and we’ll have to scarper, and we’ll lose every leaf of this crop. So shut
up, put up and get your sunglasses on, because I’m doing a burst.’ A burst meant light too fierce for human eyes.

Billy was fed up, and he said so.

Roy offered no answer; he was fed up with Billy’s fed up-ness.

Every part of the upper floor, including the boys’ bedroom, was crammed with plants. Roy, who had suffered all his life from sudden enthusiasms, was building a career in drugs. With all
the upper windows blacked out, he was able to give the plants the unbearably fierce light they needed. He fled downstairs with Billy Tyler hot on his heels. Hot was the right word, because the
house was stifling. Demolition had begun in streets nearby, though their borrowed premises were reasonably safe for now.

They ate jam butties and drank tepid lemonade.

‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’ Billy asked.

Roy nodded. He’d had lessons in Halewood. ‘Buds are worth a lot. They can be smoked in a pipe. Leaves can be brewed to make tea, and the resin goes in ciggies. Them who don’t
smoke can put it in cakes and bake it. I could sell the lot to Halewood and Speke, but we’ll get more if Holy Mary and Dopey Ginge find somebody to flog it for us.’

‘We could go to jail.’ Billy bit into his second butty.

‘Don’t talk soft.’

Billy was far from comfortable. They were stealing electricity, money and food, and living with a load of smelly weeds in a house due to be flattened at any time. ‘I seen that film,’
he muttered.

‘What film?’ Roy glared at his inferior assistant in crime.

‘They all went blind except them that were asleep or had bandages on their eyes. Plants done that.’

Roy Foley shook his head. ‘
Day of the Triffids
? That’s science fiction, you clown. No wonder you were in the bottom stream at school. These plants don’t walk, and
they’ll make us a fortune. Sneak out, cross the main road and pinch some milk off doorsteps. You’ve got to pull yourself together, lad.’

‘No. You go for a change.’

The senior executive blinked. He’d picked Billy because he always did as he was told. He suddenly realized that Billy Tyler was intending to run. ‘We’ll both go for
milk,’ he said. ‘And if you’re thinking of backing out or dashing off home, I’ll find you, soft girl, so forget it.’

‘I’m not running.’

‘You’d better not.’

Billy was beyond confused. He’d already stolen dishes, ladies’ stockings, small sieves and rubber gloves for the making of super-hash, as Roy termed the best of the crop.
They’d eaten no proper food for days, and Billy was becoming light-headed. There was enough foliage in the house to merit the hiring of a workforce, yet he and Roy
were
the
workforce, so how would they manage? It would take a month to sift the top of the crop through nylons . . .

‘Billy?’

‘What? And I want to be Bill, not Billy.’

‘Right, Bill. Where’ve you gone in your head?’

‘It’s too much for two people, Roy.’

‘Dopey Ginger will help.’

‘What about Holy Mary?’

‘Too busy doing charity work and going to church. It’s her cover. She’ll be great at the selling side of the job.’

‘So who’s going to turn that drum all day? And the thing that makes compressed hash?’

‘We’ll work it out. I always think of something, don’t I?’

Bill pondered. Roy hadn’t thought of much when they’d nearly been caught shoplifting and when they’d burgled a house on Picton Road; Bill had been dreaming about being locked
in a cell, the same dream for three nights, then he’d had a nightmare about magistrates. Roy Foley was good at ideas, but no good at keeping himself and others out of trouble.

‘Come on,’ Roy ordered again. ‘We need milk.’

They went to steal milk.

Belle Horrocks was in a state of excitement that spread the full length of the farmhouse kitchen’s table. She was going home for a week. She was going home in a grey suit
with a white blouse and black shoes and carrying a smart black handbag. Her mother and father believed that she was part of a peripatetic team used by companies preparing for audit, and Belle had
to look the part.

Home was new, as her parents had moved to Wavertree; that was also the place where her three-year-old daughter Lisa lived. Belle’s duties at Meadowbank would be undertaken by one of the
part-timers who filled in when necessary. ‘Lisa’s growing so fast,’ Belle told the girls. ‘She can write her name and count to twenty.’

‘You should go home more often,’ Babs opined. ‘You get a few days off every month like the rest of us.’

But everyone knew that Belle was careful with money. She saved assiduously, keeping a close eye on the balance in her bank book. Eve supplied working clothes, massage oils and food, so Belle was
steadily accumulating funds in order to acquire living quarters for herself and her daughter. Nothing on earth meant as much as Lisa did: Lisa would have a decent life and a good education with a
career at the end of it; she’d be a teacher or a nurse, something respectable, anyway.

‘Where will you take her?’ Sally asked.

‘Oh, parks, libraries, Crosby beach, maybe Formby.’

‘Anywhere and everywhere free,’ Angela sneered. ‘You won’t even find the bus fare to go home more often.’

Babs was a bit fed up with Angela Whiplash Dyson. ‘Oh, shut your mouth, or wear one of your gags. Belle’s saving for little Lisa. And she’s travelling free today, too, because
Eve will drop her off before we go to Southport. So try and make something out of that, you bad-minded bitch. Look in a mirror at your mean mouth, Ange. You might have good bones, but you’ve
the gob of a bloody snake, thin and nasty.’

Three women leapt from chairs. Kate jumped up and pressed the panic button, which would sound in Eve’s office, while Babs and Angela indulged in hair-pulling, scratching, biting and
kicking. Angela was the taller of the two, but Babs was the product of meaner streets, and she knew a few tricks when it came to caring for herself. She threw Angela at a wall and followed through
by seizing the woman by the throat. ‘You are an evil tart. I hope one day a client will lose it with you and break your effing neck. Get your hands out of my hair, bitch. And Belle would make
a dozen of you, you useless article.’

Belle dragged Babs away. ‘She’s not worth it, babe. Let her take it out on her victims tonight.’

Angela strode purposefully towards Babs. ‘I’ll kill you next time,’ she promised.

‘You and whose army, Whiplash? Do you know where I come from?’

‘From a bad egg,’ was Angela’s swift reply.

‘From Scotty Road, actually. I don’t need whips or canes or handcuffs, because I’m street-smart, see? When you shuffle off the face of the earth, it will look like an accident.
I have friends in low places.’

Eve, responding to the panic buzzer, entered the room. ‘Babs?’

Everyone froze.

‘That fourth attic is sound-proofed now and full of rubbish. Would you like to spend a few hours calming down among boxes of crap? Angela, behave yourself, or you’ll go up with her,
and you can ruin each other’s looks for life. Get out of here, the lot of you. Belle, I’ll drop you at home. Babs, you start negotiations with Don Crawford this afternoon. I’ll do
a bit of shopping on Lord Street.’