He doubted it, he thought grimly, although there might be a few who had experienced soup kitchens and the soul-destroying means test first hand. Certainly they were better than the other two - the Liberals and the Tories - although that weren’t saying over much.
By the time Zachariah turned into Fighting Cock Lane and continued through the labyrinth of alleys and narrow courts beyond he was panting hard, despite being a very fit man, and he was inwardly cursing Molly. She was nowt but trouble that one, he said to himself as his foot slipped on something unmentionable and he nearly cannoned head first into the brick wall of a back yard, the stench from within giving him a pretty good idea of what he had just stepped in. And the mother, Jessie, wasn’t much better. By, Rosie had her work cut out all right and he wouldn’t blame her if she upped and walked out on the lot of them. But she wouldn’t. His eyes narrowed in the darkness as he felt his way along a cut between two streets that was as black as pitch. No, she wouldn’t, not his Rosie.
Whisht. He made a clicking sound with his tongue against his teeth. He couldn’t afford to think like that, even to himself. She wasn’t his Rosie, she’d never be his Rosie - he had her friendship and that was enough, it
had
to be enough. He’d had the privilege of watching her mature into a lovely young woman and had played a part in broadening her mind, and he was thankful for that. The word mocked him with the serenity it suggested. There was nothing calm or peaceful about the feeling that burned him up every night and ate into his days, and he couldn’t count the times he’d been near to taking up with Janie again simply to ease his body’s torment. But Janie deserved better than that. It had been for her sake - Janie’s - that he’d made the break in the first place, he thought too much of the lass to use her, and that’s what it had turned into in the end. And she was a bonny enough lass and good company too, she’d meet someone else soon enough. There would be plenty of men who’d consider themselves well blessed to have Janie’s favours.
As Zachariah emerged into Stone Street where Rosie’s grannie lived he took a minute to lean back against a house wall and get his breath. He hoped he’d find Molly here with the old lady. His eyes narrowed as he realized he was worried about the bairn herself as well as how all this would affect Rosie. Half the time he wanted to wring Molly’s neck, and the lass had got a tongue on her as sharp as a knife, by, she had, but there was another side to the bairn too.
She’d spent hours tending that baby spuggy she’d found fluttering about in the street, and against all odds the house sparrow had made it. He’d wondered if she would let it go - she’d had it nigh on four weeks and got right fond of it into the bargain - but came the day she’d opened the lid of the little cage he’d knocked together, and he’d never forget what she’d said as they had watched it flit straight up into the sky. ‘He was made to fly. He doesn’t want to stay around these parts an’ be caged, he wants better than that.’ Funny, but he’d got the idea then she wasn’t talking wholly about the bird, and the look on her face as she had spoken had bothered him for days.
He straightened abruptly, irritated with his thoughts, and moved away from the wall with a shake of his fair head. Aye, well the same road that led upwards could lead downwards depending on which direction you were facing, and there were choices to be made all through life, even for a lass as young as Molly. Molly didn’t have something that was inherent in Rosie’s character - strength of purpose, self-dignity, fortitude, call it what you will, it wasn’t there. There were people who made things happen and others who let things happen to them, and he knew which side of the coin he placed Molly.
He looked down the narrow dark street where the houses seemed to lean over the greasy cobbles and felt a sense of foreboding. But he was running ahead of himself here, likely as not she’d stayed too late with her grannie and had been frightened to come home in the dark. There was many a grown woman who would think twice about walking these streets once the sun went down.
Molly wasn’t at her grandmother’s, but by the time Zachariah’s banging on the front door had woken the old woman the whole house had been raised, the result of which being he met Ronnie Tiller for the first time.
The lodgers, all six of them, had gathered in the kitchen along with Rosie’s grandmother, and after Zachariah had finished speaking they all shook their heads soberly. The old woman said nothing at all, she had imbibed a sight too freely at the Archer’s Arms earlier that evening and it was doubtful if she was aware of anything that was being said as she sat slumped in a hard-backed chair, her eyes half closed and her mouth slack.
Ronnie Tiller was standing at the back of the others and just inside the doorway, and now Zachariah spoke directly to him as he said, ‘An’ you, Tiller. You’re sayin’ Molly wasn’t here the night? Is that so?’
‘Aye.’
‘An’ you’ll be tellin’ me next you haven’t been givin’ the bairn presents, money an’ such, eh?’
‘Presents?’ Ronnie’s eyes flickered and as Zachariah’s gaze didn’t falter he mumbled, ‘Aye, I might have given her the odd penny or two to spend on bullets, I feel sorry for the lass with her da dying and all. That’s not a crime is it?’
‘No,
that’s
not a crime.’
‘And what does that mean?’
‘You know exactly what it means so don’t mess about with me, lad. You’ve bin leadin’ the little lass on . . . or worse.’
For a full ten seconds no one in the room moved or spoke a word. The other five men were digesting the significance of what had been declared and the two combatants - because it was clear to everyone now that that was what they were - continued to stare at each other.
‘Look, man,’ one of the lodgers, a middle-aged man with a heavy growth of beard spoke, rubbing his face uncomfortably, ‘I dunno what’s bin goin’ on but you want to watch what you say unless you can prove it.’
‘Oh I’ll prove it all right,’ said Zachariah evenly, ‘but for the moment the main thing is to find the lass. So you’re all sayin’ she wasn’t here the night?’ he asked again, his gaze sweeping over the troubled faces of the other men now.
‘There was a special do at the Archers, we all went along ’cept . . .’ It was the middle-aged man who had spoken, and as his eyes turned to Ronnie all the others looked the same way.
‘I was out an’ all. You know that, I wasn’t here when you all got back, was I?’ There was a pugnaciousness in Ronnie’s voice that sounded forced. ‘Me an’ some pals went for a drink, you can ask them if you don’t believe me. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of the bairn for days, not since she was last here with her mam and the other ’un.’
Zachariah’s eyes were as hard as blue diamonds but he recognized that there was little else he could do right at this moment beyond search the house and netty which, as he had expected, produced nothing. However, he turned to the middle-aged man as he was leaving and said, ‘You’ll keep your eyes an’ ears open?’
‘Oh aye, man, aye. An’ we’ll have a scout round the morrer an’ ask a few questions. The old biddy across the road could tell you the colour of what comes out of your backside the way her curtains twitch.’ The man’s voice was weighty with meaning and Zachariah nodded to it. It seemed Ronnie Tiller’s co-habitants trusted the man as little as he did.
He left quickly after that, and he didn’t glance Ronnie Tiller’s way again, but he found his fingers were itching for his club all the way back to Hendon.
Chapter Eight
‘But where do you think she could
be
, Mrs McLinnie?’
‘Eee, I dinna know, hinny, but I’ll get the lads enquirin’, they know a few sorts atween ’em. With our Patrick an’ John laid off, an’ Mr McLinnie an’ Michael on short time it’ll give ’em somethin’ to do, instead of gettin’ under me feet half the day.’
When Annie McLinnie had heard the knock on her back door just after she had come downstairs at her normal rising time of half past five, the last person she had expected to see standing in the yard was Rosie Ferry. And the lass had looked bad, as white as a sheet, which wasn’t surprising when she’d had no sleep for twenty-four hours. She still looked bad. This last thought prompted Annie to push Rosie down into one of the hard-backed kitchen chairs as she said, ‘Look, lass, you’re havin’ a sup afore you go, an’ a bite of somethin’.’
‘I really thought she might be here.’ Rosie’s voice had a cracked sound. When Zachariah had arrived home at gone two in the morning without Molly, Rosie had been filled with a dread that had increased hour by hour, and the only ray of hope had been the possibility that Molly might have gone to Mrs McLinnie’s. Since Shane’s departure goodness knows where just after they had moved to Benton Street, Rosie and her mother and the two girls had acquired the habit of visiting the McLinnie household for an hour every Sunday afternoon once the cleaning at home was finished, and she knew Molly liked all the attention the McLinnie brothers gave her.
‘Lass, you know what bairns are. The gliff our John an’ Patrick gave us when they were brought back by the constable after bein’ missin’ for two days, an’ them not a day over ten years old. An’ all ’cos Mr McLinnie had said he was gonna bray ’em for breakin’ me vase. He brayed ’em all right, the pair of ’em couldn’t sit down for a week.’
‘But this is different.’
Aye it was, it was different. Annie busied herself mashing the tea but her mind was racing. She had always said Jessie would have trouble with that one, her Molly, now hadn’t she. And this little lass here couldn’t be in two places at once, bless her. Rosie worked all the hours under the sun as it was. By, old James would turn in his grave if he knew the state of things, he would that.
‘Here, lass, get this down you while it’s hot.’ Annie pushed a steaming cup of tea under Rosie’s nose. ‘An’ help yourself to sugar, I’ve just picked up me rations for the week so there’s plenty. An’ you’re havin’ a shive of stotty cake to keep you goin’, you won’t be no good to any of ’em if you’re bad, now then, lass.’
Once seated at the big wooden table opposite Rosie, Annie said, ‘What about that pal of yours, Flora? Might the bairn have gone round her house? You never know with bairns.’
‘No.’ Rosie shook her head. ‘She wouldn’t know the way there, Mrs McLinnie. Molly’s never been to Flora’s.’ She hardly ever went there either, Rosie reflected silently as Annie nodded her head and took a sip from her own mug of black tea. Since Flora had started work at Baxter’s shipyard Mr Thomas had got worse about what she did and whom she associated with. Perhaps partly because Rosie suspected the son of the firm, Peter Baxter, was sweet on her friend from little remarks Flora had let drop, and Mr Thomas knew it and wanted the relationship to grow. Upstart that he was he didn’t want this Peter put off by Flora being best friends with a miner’s daughter. Not that Flora seemed to return this Peter’s interest despite the fact that courting a lad like him would be a huge feather in her cap. But Mr Thomas had made Rosie feel thoroughly uncomfortable on the odd occasion she had visited his house, and on the last visit, some months before, she had determined not to go again. By unspoken mutual consent Flora always came to Benton Street now, or the two girls would meet at the cinema or in High Street West where they would spend an hour or two wandering about the shops, and of course in the summer there was always the beach at Roker.
Flora’s house was a very unhappy one. In spite of her overwhelming concern for her sister, Rosie found the nagging suspicions, which she now realized had always been there at the back of her mind but had only dawned fully on her consciousness in the last couple of years, were at the forefront of her mind for a few moments. She’d tried more than once to broach the subject of Flora’s home life tactfully with her friend, but Flora had always been evasive and changed the subject as soon as she could and Rosie didn’t feel she had the right to press her misgivings any further. And of course she could be wrong, she might be imagining things. Certainly Flora had everything she wanted materially, she supposed her friend’s family were quite rich compared to many round here and there was no doubt she benefited from Flora’s generosity. Some of the clothes that Flora handed down to her were almost brand new and were a life saver with money being so tight.
‘Come on, lass, get this down you, you look like death.’
Rosie came out of her thoughts to find Annie’s anxious eyes on her face, and she forced a quick smile in response even though the lead weight in her heart was making eating difficult.
She was a plucky lass this one; all her da. Annie’s thoughts materialized as she said, her voice bracing, ‘Now try not to worry, hinny. The bairn’ll probably turn up the day, she might have got playin’ with some school pals or somethin’ when there was no one at home at your grannie’s, an’ kipped there.’
Rosie nodded silently, but if she had spoken her thoughts she would have said she didn’t altogether believe number eleven Stone Street had been empty while her grandmother was out last night. And Zachariah didn’t think so either, although as yet there was no proof to the contrary. Anyway, it was the story Zachariah had been told and now, with this last remaining hope proving fruitless, she had no course but to go to the police station and let officialdom take over.