Tonight he was already discomfited by a meeting he had had earlier in the evening when a chap called Phipps had called unexpectedly at number sixteen while he, Willis, was there, watching Dolly and Sid eating pies and mash. Willis had called in to see what was going on and whether or not Don had made himself scarce, but the man was more interested in a letter and a man called John Daye.
‘I knew that was a stupid idea right from the start!’ Willis muttered, his words immediately lost in the vastness of the place. ‘A bit too clever, our Donald!’
Phipps had been very persistent, and poor old Sid had needed to watch what he said because Dolly was there with her pretty little ears flapping. Willis had found the encounter very worrying, and the apparently innocent questions about PSD and the letter had smacked of an interrogation rather than a few general enquiries. Sid had thought so too. Too close for comfort. Much too close.
He was, in fact, hoping Don would disappear and stay disappeared, because if the police got hold of him they’d sweat the truth out of him and he and Sid would be next on the Wanted List! On the other hand, Willis was dreading a time when he and Sid would be thrown on to their own resources. Don had been the brains behind the robberies – the natural leader. That’s what he called himself, and Willis wouldn’t argue with that. Ever since they were lads he and Sid had followed Don’s lead – and they had all done pretty well out of their life of crime. Without him they would be unlikely to carry on, since neither Sid nor Willis had any contacts. Don had insisted on keeping them to himself – for security reasons. That’s how he’d put it.
‘If you don’t know anything, you can’t let anything slip!’ Willis spoke Don’s words aloud. He’d been quite content not to be ‘in the know’, although he knew Sid resented the situation. But then Sid was a brother, and he, Willis, was only ‘the wheels’.
Now, stopping to check some windows for signs of a possible break-in, Willis shivered as he tried to remember exactly how Sid had answered Phipps’ questions. Had he, as Willis feared, given away any secrets? If so, there would be the devil to pay if Don ever found out.
‘Does anyone by the name of John Daye come here?’ the man had asked. ‘Have you ever heard the name?’
No. That had been the safest answer, although Don had not always been a Wickham. He had been born Donald John Daye and remained so until his mother was widowed and was then remarried to a Thomas Wickham. She had changed her son’s name so that the two boys grew up as brothers instead of half brothers.
Nothing wrong in that, Willis assured himself.
The problem throughout Phipps’ visit had been Dolly. They had been hampered by Dolly’s presence because if she had put two and two together the fat would have been in the fire. He had been aware of her sharp gaze as Sid stammered his replies.
‘Has there ever been an office in this house?’
That was another one. He’d known that would come up. It was all Dolly’s fault for interfering. Why had she opened the letter, and why on earth had she sent it back to the sender with a letter of her own? Stupid,
stupid
girl! In Sid’s opinion, she deserved a good thumping for what she’d done, but then Sid thought women were like that. Always sticking their noses in where they didn’t belong. The annoying thing was that they had not been able to tell her how stupid she’d been because then she’d have known everything!
And the way she’d looked at Phipps! She obviously had taken a fancy to the wretched man. Fluttering her eyelashes and talking in that coy way of hers. Good job Don wasn’t around to—
He jumped violently at a sound from behind the mountain of sacks on his left – but it was only a rat. He hated the nasty animals, always slithering around in the dark corners, frightening the life out of him. They were dirty creatures. Someone had once told him that you could catch a disease from rats, although Willis could never remember
which
disease, but he knew it was quite disgusting.
He yelled at it, and it skittered away with a defiant squeak.
‘Damned thing!’
He was supposed to put down rat poison once a week, but kept forgetting. He promised himself he would put down a double dose next time. If he had his way he’d burn the place down with all the rats inside it.
Reluctantly, he set off again past the place where the roof leaked. As he tried to dodge the drips, he returned to the question of Phipps. Poking his nose in where it wasn’t wanted. Said he was asking on behalf of his landlady, who was the same woman who wrote the letter – which was Don’s first wife, Lydia!
‘We don’t know what the initials PSD stand for,’ Phipps insisted. He was like a dog worrying a bone.
‘Well, neither do we.’
Willis grinned at the memory. Sid had him there. That put Phipps in his place, good and proper.
Regaining his composure a little, Willis moved forward purposefully, feeling a glimmer of satisfaction that they had managed to pass on almost no information to their inquisitive visitor. His own feeling was that the PS could stand for Public Something – that is, Security or Safety . . . but since Don had invented the initials they did not really stand for anything. Don reckoned they were good enough to satisfy Lydia and that was good enough for him. The three friends had had a good laugh over the initials, which had been good enough for years, but now, of course, Dippy Dolly had to raise questions about it and they weren’t laughing now!
‘So what did you do with all the other letters addressed to PSD?’ Phipps expression was almost challenging, Willis recalled nervously.
That was a tricky one, and Willis had felt quite faint at the time, but good old Sid had outsmarted the man.
‘Burned them.’ He had looked Phipps straight in the eye. The truth was that at this particular moment, Willis was full of admiration for Don’s brother.
‘You had no forwarding address then?’
‘Nope.’
That had stopped him in his tracks.
Feeling happier, Willis started up the stairs to the next level where the main office was to be found. He always felt safer up here, nearer to the main windows so that if there was a moon there would be light from outside which made him feel less isolated. Glancing through the glass window into the office, he checked that the door was still locked and thought how easy it would be to steal something from here. Just smash the window, put his hand through the hole and turn the key. But then the office did not contain anything of value, so what would be the point?
‘One more,’ he muttered, minutes later, opening the door to the small stock room. There was even less to pinch in here. Old ledgers, printed sheets curling at the edges, envelopes, ink, pens, blotting paper, a mouldering box of business cards, a smell of damp paper mixed with neglect . . .
He helped himself to a business card, a couple of pen nibs and half a dozen paper clips. Not because he ever used them, but because they were the only ‘perks’ he could find and he felt he was entitled to something extra.
‘Damn Phipps!’ he grumbled as he left the stock room, locking it carefully after him. He had enough to worry about with Don about to leave town. How on earth would he and Sid survive without him?
Eight
When Leonard Phipps returned to his lodgings he found Lydia Daye alone, nursing a cup of hot milk. She looked so vulnerable that he almost wished he had no information to pass on to her, but she was bound to ask about the enquiries he had made on her behalf.
His brother always fed him well so he had refused Mrs Daye’s suggestion earlier that she could keep his dinner hot over a saucepan of boiling water. After he had hung up his jacket he drew up a chair and took a deep breath.
Lydia flinched visibly.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘I’m not sure. I have been anxious all day, and now I think you are going to give me bad news of some kind.’ She shook her head. ‘Poor Father has been particularly difficult. I had to lock the doors and hide the keys to stop him from going out in search of Robert. He was convinced that the boy had wandered away and was lost.’
‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Daye.’
She shrugged. ‘It’s over now, anyway, although I had to lie to finally convince him. I told him he had promised to call in tomorrow. I hated doing that because it just feeds his paranoia, but I had to do something. I’m gambling on the fact that by tomorrow he will have forgotten our conversation . . . But tell me about your day – and anything you could glean about this mysterious letter from Mrs Wickham . . . Anything good, that is!’ she amended with a faint smile.
‘Well, there certainly is no office at that address and maybe there never was one. There
was
a man called Sidney Wickham – odd-looking chap, eyes close together. He claimed to live there with his brother Don, and a Dolly Wickham was also present. She has recently married Don, who wasn’t around, in what she described as a private wedding.’
‘Private wedding?’ She regarded him blankly. ‘What does that mean, exactly?’
‘I cannot say. I dare say I should have asked. She’s expecting a child in a few months’ time, and she was keen to show me a ring he had given her – a ring which looked suspiciously like a good quality diamond, although both Sidney and the other man called Burke insisted it was glass.’
‘Burke?’
‘Yes. Willis Burke. He seemed to be a friend, who’d just happened to call in. A rather nervous friend, I thought. He kept biting his nails and said very little, although he supported everything Sidney said. A little echo, you might say.’
‘So, all in all, hardly reassuring.’ She sighed heavily.
‘No. It sounded vaguely credible, but in my job you get a feel for lies, and I’d put money on the fact that they were hiding something. They seemed frightened of saying the wrong thing – conveniently forgetting things like dates and names and insisting that they had never met or even heard of a John Daye.’ He shook his head. ‘The truth is I thought it all somewhat suspicious.’
‘I’m inclined to agree, but I . . .’ She turned as the sound of her son calling out alerted her to the fact that he had woken. ‘Excuse me.’
After she had resettled Adam with half a glass of milk she returned to her chair, but had by then lost her train of thought.
Leonard leaned forward. ‘Something particularly caught my attention. When I asked them what they had done with any other letters addressed to John Daye at the PSD address, the brother said, ‘Burned them all.’
‘Burned them?’ She was shocked. The seconds ticked past as she stared at him. ‘How could they have burned them? John answered every one of them!’
‘Exactly! And if they burned all letters addressed to John Daye, why were they adamant they’d never heard his name before?’
‘Oh!’ She covered her mouth with the fingers of her right hand. ‘But that means . . . What does it mean? If they didn’t burn them they probably forwarded them to John? If so, then they must have a forwarding address for him.’
He sighed heavily. ‘Not necessarily, but it certainly means that they lied. They most certainly had something to hide.’
‘That could be true I suppose. What about Sidney’s brother Don? Where was he?’
‘Away on business. He’s a salesman and travels a lot. The woman called Dolly told me that – before she was told to keep out of it!’
After another long silence Lydia said quietly, ‘But whatever the truth is, no one has harmed John – as far as we know.’ She stared down at her hands as she twisted them in her lap. ‘Nobody could have harmed him because he still answers my letters and he comes home whenever he can. I saw him very recently.’
Leonard frowned. ‘What put that idea into your head, Mrs Phipps – that someone has
harmed
your husband?’
Surprised, she turned to face him. ‘I don’t know. I think the idea has been creeping up on me.’ She swallowed. ‘I had a terrible dream the night before last – oh, you may think it trite to find a meaning in dreams, but . . .’
‘Not at all. In fact I—’
‘It was more a nightmare, in fact. I was walking in a very bad place, along a muddy path with deep rushing water all around me and dead trees in the landscape and a horrible silence everywhere and I knew it was a kind of Hell. Without the flames, I mean . . . And then I heard his name – John’s name – and there were grey sad-looking people all around me whispering his name over and over!’ She shuddered. ‘I woke up with my heart hammering, hardly able to breathe. It might have been an omen. I keep wondering what it meant.’
‘An omen? I would hesitate to go that far, but I do think the mind can play tricks.’ He shrugged. ‘But you shouldn’t let it frighten you, Mrs Daye.’
Her expression was bleak. ‘But I
am
frightened, Mr Phipps. I have the feeling that something really bad is happening, but I cannot put my finger on it. I fear that worse is to come.’
After a sleepless night, Lydia came to the conclusion that she must somehow discover whatever was being hidden from her – but how to go about it? She felt intuitively that if she herself visited number sixteen she might learn more. At present the house in Mansoor Street loomed large in her imagination, associated with all sorts of nameless fears and unanswered questions. She now knew that there were people living there and one of them was a young woman by the name of Dolly Wickham. Lydia wanted to talk ‘one woman to another’. Surely this Dolly person would understand her need for the truth. She decided to take Adam with her so that the other woman would be more sympathetic and hopefully be willing to help her.
As she supervised her son’s dressing she pondered the problem of her father. If he went with them he might well cause problems, but after the incident at the department store she was reluctant to leave him at home unattended. She dismissed the idea of asking Leonard Phipps to watch him as totally unsuitable – her father was not his responsibility. She toyed with the idea of enlisting Richard Wright, who ran the paper shop, but decided against that. There was no way, she felt, that she could burden someone else. They would all go, she decided reluctantly.