Three Things About Elsie(45)

‘None taken,’ I said. ‘So you’ve lost touch with everyone?’

‘I hear of a few. The twins moved down Surrey way. Or it might have been Kent. Somewhere far-fetched. Mabel Fogg lives with her granddaughter and an army of kids. Spends all her time watching cartoons and mopping up Weetabix.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘Not my idea of fun.’

‘We should count our blessings, though. Some of us didn’t make it.’ I tiptoed the words towards him. ‘Look at Ronnie Butler.’

‘Some of us didn’t deserve to make it,’ he said. ‘Nasty business. Although I smelled a rat right from the start.’

I sat up a little straighter. ‘You did?’

‘He wound so many people up in his time, they would have formed a queue to push him in. And I would have been at the bloody front.’

‘He just fell, Cyril. The police decided in the end. He was a drunk.’ My throat was so dry, I felt the words try to fasten themselves to the sides. ‘Don’t be so melodramatic.’

‘I saw him on the night of the accident, you know. Talking to whatshername. The girl who died.’

I looked at Elsie.

‘Beryl,’ I said. ‘I think you mean Beryl.’

‘That’s it. Beryl. Nice girl. Talked too much, but then most of them do, don’t they?’

Jack coughed.

‘Outside the town hall, they were. Arguing hammer and tongs. I told the police, but no one’s ever interested in what I’ve got to say.’

‘What happened then?’ said Jack.

‘You tell me.’ Cyril folded his arms. ‘Next thing I heard, they’d found her at the side of the road. Hit and run. Question is, who hit and who ran? No one ever found out, but I know who my money’s on.’ His whole body was rigid, to match his opinion.

I looked at Elsie. Her expression hadn’t changed, but her eyes blinked away at all her thoughts.

‘The police must have been suspicious,’ said Jack. ‘What did they have to say?’

‘They kept us in that draughty police station for ruddy hours, asking questions. You must remember that, Florence?’ Cyril shook his head. ‘Frozen to death, I was. Didn’t even have a coat with me.’

It was there. The memory. I felt it, before I even knew it had arrived.

‘I remember!’ I said. ‘There was a frost. When I walked out of the dance, I made clouds of breath with my words, even with a scarf on. All that talking. Afterwards, I was worried she was cold, lying there in the grass all by herself. Waiting to be found.’

Cyril sniffed. ‘Proper state she was, by all accounts. The woman who found her said—’

‘Ronnie’s car!’ I could hear myself shouting. ‘I remember it driving out of the town-hall car park. I remember him leaving.’

‘Of course it was Ronnie.’ Cyril dragged air between his teeth. ‘We all knew that. It’s just that no one could prove it.’

‘Not even the police?’ said Jack.

Cyril found more air to drag. ‘There were no forensic whatnots then. You should know. All a policeman had was a notebook and a sense of duty.’

‘It was a long time ago,’ Elsie said. ‘A different life.’

I felt a memory shift in the corner of my head.

‘Was there someone else in Ronnie’s car that night?’ I said. ‘There was, wasn’t there?’

I’d found it. The memory. I opened a drawer and saw all the contents and wondered if I should close it again.

Cyril squinted in the September sunshine as it tripped across the canal. ‘Of course there was,’ he said. ‘We all knew that.’

‘Who was it, Cyril?’ I said.

The question waited in the air.

I realised I was holding my breath.

‘We don’t know, do we? No one ever came forward.’

‘But what do you think?’ said Jack.

Cyril picked at a back tooth.

‘What I think doesn’t really matter, does it? Not after all this time. I said my piece then and no one listened.’

‘We’re listening now,’ said Jack.

Cyril sat back in the deckchair. ‘I’d nipped outside,’ he said. ‘Bit of fresh air. As you do. I saw them arguing, and then she storms off, Beryl does.’

Jack put his tea on the fold-up table. ‘Where did she go?’

‘She headed across that stretch of waste ground at the back of the town hall. Housing estate now, of course. They couldn’t just leave it as it was; they had to start building on it. I used to say to Eileen—’

‘So what did Ronnie do?’ Jack said.

Cyril coughed away his anecdote. ‘He stood there for a minute, smoking his cigarette, staring at where she’d been standing, then he threw the stub on the grass and got in his car.’

‘He was alone, then?’ I said.

‘At that point, yes. But he’d just got to the gates of the car park, and someone stopped him. Banged on the passenger door. He leaned over and they got inside, then the two of them drove off.’

‘Did you see who it was?’ Elsie and Jack both spoke at the same time.

I could feel the breath in my chest, waiting to leave.

‘Not from where I was standing, no. Although I can tell you one thing.’ Cyril leaned back in his chair again. ‘It was definitely a woman.’