Winter on the Mersey(98)

The policeman was still talking to her, she realised, and she looked up at him with a tear-stained face. ‘Try not to worry, Mrs Kerrigan,’ he said as he moved to leave.

Nancy watched him go with no faith that he would find her child. He gave her the impression he thought Georgie had run away and was hiding somewhere close, but she knew he’d been looking forward to staying with Tommy for ages, and wouldn’t have left voluntarily in a month of Sundays. Even if he had been scared he would have gone to Tommy for comfort, or to Dolly and Pop’s house.

Violet came and sat beside her, passing her a hanky. ‘Here, take this.’

Nancy nodded gratefully and wiped her face. ‘Thank you.’ She sat up straight again. ‘What really happened, Violet? How can my boy have run off?’

Violet shook her head. ‘I don’t believe he did. He wouldn’t leave us, even if he was scared by a burglar.’

‘Where’s Sarah now?’ Nancy wondered, realising she hadn’t seen her younger sister that morning in all the chaos.

‘She’s sleeping. She looks awful; she got beaten up quite badly. She can’t remember much about it.’ Violet bit her lip. ‘I think Rita gave her something to help her sleep.’

‘What about Tommy?’

‘He’s sleeping too, he’s been up half the night,’ Violet explained, but even as she spoke the door opened and Tommy came in, looking white-faced but determined.

‘Tommy!’ Nancy stood up and went over to him. ‘What happened?’

‘Are you all right?’ Violet broke in. ‘You’re meant to be in bed.’

Tommy shook his head. ‘I can’t sleep. I keep thinking and thinking. What if it’s my fault? I forgot to bolt the back door.’

‘Don’t be daft, you aren’t to blame,’ Violet said hurriedly. The boy had enough to worry about, without that extra burden of guilt. ‘You locked it, the policeman checked and saw it had been broken.’

‘So tell me what happened,’ Nancy insisted.

Tommy drew a deep breath and tried as best he could to explain. He’d been asleep with Georgie in his room and had woken up when he heard a noise – he wasn’t sure what it was. He’d had a nightmare, but now he reckoned that was the back door being forced open and all the activity beyond his bedroom door. Then there was another noise, which he now realised was Sarah stumbling on the stairs. He’d got up and found Georgie’s little camp bed was empty – then gone out and seen Sarah on the stairs, blood on her nightdress. They’d checked the house together and found no Georgie but a broken lock on the back door.

‘Sarah didn’t see who broke in, but she sort of recognised the voice,’ Tommy added. ‘Whoever it was thought she was Kitty; he kept calling her Kitty.’

‘But who would want to hurt Kitty?’ Nancy wondered aloud. Kitty was one of those people who simply didn’t have enemies. If it had been Danny, that would have been another matter – then again, nobody who knew Danny would be likely to risk breaking into his house like that. ‘Can we wake Sarah up and ask her to try to remember some more?’

‘I think we’ll have to wait,’ Violet cautioned her. ‘She was in a pretty bad way and, like I said, Rita gave her a sedative or something.’

Tommy balled his fists in frustration. ‘We’ve got to do something.’

‘I can’t sit here till she wakes up,’ Nancy burst out. ‘Every second counts. He could be freezing to death somewhere. He’ll be frightened. We have to find him. Think, who could have done this?’ She paced across the room, holding her arms tight across her stomach as if to keep in the pain. She still hadn’t taken off her coat.

Violet sat on the edge of the settee and screwed up her face. ‘I don’t know … but there was something odd, back before Christmas. I don’t rightly remember, I was so near my time and I wasn’t quite thinking straight.’ She took a breath, trying desperately to recall the stray comment over breakfast one day. ‘Pop was coming home from his ARP round and he said he’d seen someone hanging around your front door, Tommy. He didn’t do anything official about it because the fellow scarpered as soon as he saw him. He thought it was someone he knew.’ She paused again, then her expression changed as the name came to her. ‘Alfie Delaney. He said it looked like Alfie Delaney.’

Tommy gave a gasp of recognition. ‘Alfie. It has to be him. You know when he conned me into getting drunk that time? I remember now. He kept wanting to talk about our Kitty. It struck me as odd at the time, but I got in so much trouble for going to the pub that I didn’t say anything. He wouldn’t shut up though. Wanted to know if she had a boyfriend, what she did, where she went, who with. His voice went all funny when he spoke about her.’ He shivered in disgust at the memory.

‘Right, I’m going to tell one of those policemen who must still be on our street,’ said Violet, getting up, full of purpose. ‘They can go round his mother’s house and see if he was in last night. That’s a start.’

‘Tell him to check if his car’s there,’ Tommy said suddenly. ‘He loves his car.’

Violet nodded. ‘Right, I’m off. Mam is with the twins upstairs, but you’ll keep an ear out for them, won’t you?’ She ran out before either of them could answer.