Winter on the Mersey(101)
Rounding a corner, he saw the building he’d been looking for. The pub seemed shabbier in bright daylight, even though it had been recently painted. The name was now clear: The King’s Head. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘That’s where Alfie conned me into getting drunk. All because he was after Kitty and I didn’t realise.’
‘Then he took advantage of you,’ said Nancy firmly. ‘You mustn’t blame yourself. He picked on you deliberately, so that makes him a coward. You’re worth a hundred of him, Tommy.’
Tommy glowed with the praise, even though he still did blame himself for being so stupid as to be taken in like that. Still, it was good to know Nancy thought well of him. He hadn’t had as much to do with her as the rest of her family, and up till now had assumed she didn’t really know much about him either. He drew back his shoulders. Now he had to live up to the praise.
‘We could keep to the shadow of that wall so they’re less likely to see us coming,’ he suggested, and she fell in line behind him as they proceeded more cautiously now. After a minute, Tommy came to a halt. ‘See there? The pub has a back yard.’ He pointed through a flimsy gate, to a yard with barrels stacked along one side. A few low storage buildings lined two other sides of the square. Parked close to one of their doors was a car. ‘Nancy, that’s it. That’s Alfie’s car, I’m certain of it.’
‘Then we’d better be careful,’ said Nancy, edging forward a little. ‘Alfie could be anywhere.’
‘He’s probably in the pub,’ Tommy predicted, taking a good look at the building. ‘If he is, all the bar windows face to the front or round the other side. We could get into the yard if we kept well back.’
‘But we don’t know he’s in there,’ Nancy pointed out. The enormity of the risk they were about to take suddenly hit her. ‘What if he’s waiting in the yard somewhere?’
Tommy shrugged. ‘We’ll have to chance it,’ he said. ‘We’ll just be as quiet as possible and keep to the shadows where there are any.’ He paused for a few moments. ‘I can’t hear anything from the yard, can you?’
Nancy had a sense that they were stepping off a cliff into the unknown. ‘No. Let’s try it and see. Anything is better than sitting around waiting, not knowing anything.’
Silently they edged along the rest of the wall and through the gate. Staying in the shadow of one of the outbuildings, they approached the car. There was nobody in it and no sign of Alfie or the little boy.
‘If we keep down below the level of the car roof, no one can see us from the upstairs windows,’ Tommy pointed out. All his years of playing hide and seek with Michael and Megan on the farm were coming in useful, he realised. He just had to keep all his senses alert.
‘Tommy.’ Nancy stopped dead, her voice little more than a whisper. ‘Look over there, by the door of that shed. Can you see something?’
Tommy squinted towards where she was pointing. There was something there – something blue. He couldn’t quite tell what it was. They crept closer until the little object came into focus.
‘Tommy.’ Nancy thought her heart would break. ‘It’s Georgie’s slipper.’
In London, Laura decided she had better let Frank and Kitty sleep in. She wrote a swift note saying she would be back later and crept out of the admiral’s flat. She had to get back to her billet for a change of clothes, and then put in an appearance at her work, although they were aware of what had happened last night and had granted her the morning off. She was slightly muzzy with so few hours of sleep, but exhilarated from the thrill of seeing her friend rescued, when for a while she’d feared Kitty had perished in the bomb strike. She was also thrilled that Kitty had finally seen sense about Frank. It had been obvious to Laura that her friend felt strongly about him and, now that she’d seen them together, she was convinced they were meant for each other. Laura had been fond of Elliott, who had been a decent and loving man, and yet she could tell the connection between Kitty and Frank went deeper still. They definitely needed their privacy when they woke up in the admiral’s flat.
She caught a bus that for once wasn’t diverted, nearly all the way to her front door. She still couldn’t think of this as any kind of home and, as she’d foreseen, her attic room had been perishing cold over the winter, but now spring was here it had started to improve. Sadly relations with her tight-lipped landlady hadn’t.
The woman was waiting for her as she stepped into the narrow hallway, with its mean selection of coat hooks and little else apart from a sorry-looking plant that Laura sometimes secretly watered. ‘Miss Fawcett. A word, if you please.’
‘Good morning. Lovely day for once, isn’t it?’ said Laura brightly. She didn’t intend the woman’s gloom to rub off on her.
The landlady ignored her cheerfulness. ‘A young man called for you. He was most offhand, rude even. I’ll thank you not to bring down the reputation of this house with such guests. He looked most irregular. His hair was sticking up all over the place, not at all like a gentleman from any of the services.’
‘Was it dark blond by any chance?’ Laura asked.
‘I assume you know him, then?’ the woman fired back.
Laura fixed her with her most solemn gaze. ‘If it is the person I’m thinking of, then I can assure you that he has served his country in ways that you or I can scarcely imagine. The fact that one of the only traces of this is visible in his slightly irregular haircut is nothing short of a miracle. If that is all, then I’ll go to my room.’