Missing Person Page 8

  ‘Come off it,’ said Sammy, ‘prices are near to rock-bottom.’

  ‘Not quite,’ said Boots.

  ‘No difference, old cock,’ said Sammy, ‘considerin’ the offer is forty thousand quid.’

  ‘Yes, well under four thousand for each of our twelve yards,’ said Boots, ‘and we own the freeholds of eight of them. Sammy, for the first time since you launched yourself into business, I think you’re making a mistake. All the yards are returning a steady income.’

  ‘At a minimum profit,’ said Sammy.

  ‘Fair enough under present circumstances,’ said Boots, ‘but if there’s a crisis in the affairs of Europe, our yards will be a collective goldmine. Hang on to them, Sammy.’

  ‘You feelin’ your age?’ said Sammy.

  ‘Not yet, Junior,’ smiled Boots. ‘Are you feeling a need for a large chunk of cash in your pocket?’

  ‘Being as I am, a married bloke with a fam’ly, I’ve got expenses of a ruinous kind,’ said Sammy, happy husband of Susie and doting dad of three-year-old Daniel and one-year-old Bess. Remembering his years of poverty and striving, he meant to give his kids the best that he and Susie could afford.

  ‘You’re thinking, are you, of investments that’ll look after the expenses of a superior education for Daniel, Bess and any others that come along?’ said Boots.

  ‘Susie being a lady, despite being brought up in Peabody’s Buildings, I’m in favour of makin’ sure they all turn out to be a personal credit to her,’ said Sammy.

  ‘What does Susie say to that?’ asked Boots, who seemed quite good-humoured about everything, despite having voiced opposition to an acceptance of Johnson’s offer.

  ‘Well, I’ll be frank,’ said Sammy, ‘she’s against Eton or Harrow.’

  ‘She probably knows neither of those would get past Chinese Lady.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinkin’ of askin’ our revered Ma’s opinion,’ said Sammy. Boots raised an eyebrow. Sammy raised a grin. ‘My mistake,’ he said.

  ‘Granted,’ said Boots.

  ‘I’ll admit Susie speaks kindly about your old school, West Square,’ said Sammy.

  ‘I’m fond of Susie,’ said Boots.

  ‘You’re fond of the fact that Rosie and Annabelle are attendin’ West Square these days,’ said Sammy. ‘Point is, would it educate Daniel into bein’ smart enough to own a City bank when he’s old enough? I put that to you candidly.’

  ‘And I put it to you, Sammy, has Daniel said he’d like to own a City bank?’

  ‘Who wouldn’t?’ said Sammy.

  ‘Some of us,’ said Boots. ‘It means striped trousers, a frock coat and a top hat. And aspirins in the afternoon.’

  ‘All the same, old cock,’ said Sammy, ‘I take it you appreciate my feelings as a parental dad wishful to see his kids don’t end up pushin’ a barrow.’

  ‘Sammy old love,’ said Boots, ‘your present salary would take care of the expenses of a superior education for any of your kids.’

  ‘Presently two,’ said Sammy.

  ‘You’ve got four in mind,’ said Boots, who’d have liked another son and daughter himself.

  ‘Which coincides with Susie’s ideas,’ said Sammy. ‘But there’s other expenses, like fur coats for her.’

  ‘Susie doesn’t want fur coats,’ said Boots, ‘any more than Emily does.’

  ‘Also,’ said Sammy, ‘I ’ave in mind wages for gardeners and suchlike.’

  ‘I see,’ said Boots, his smile lurking, ‘you’re thinking about being lord of a manor, are you?’

  ‘The fam’ly’s got a lord of the manor,’ said Sammy. ‘That’s you.’

  ‘Talking about fur coats, the family won’t want to see you in one, complete with a fat cigar. Nor would Chinese Lady stand for it.’

  ‘Perishin’ dustbin lids,’ said Sammy, ‘me in a fur coat and a fat cigar? Come off it. Susie wouldn’t open the door to me in the evenings.’

  ‘There’s another point of view,’ said Boots.

  ‘All right, out with it,’ said Sammy.

  ‘It concerns the people who run our yards.’

  ‘Well, good on yer, mate,’ said Sammy, ‘that’s a point of view all right, and I’m not denying it.’

  ‘We’ve got our yard managers and their employees to think about,’ said Boots.

  ‘Might I mention that if Johnson’s buy us out lock, stock and barrel, it’s not for the purpose of closin’ the yards down?’ said Sammy.

  ‘And might I mention in turn that Susie’s dad manages our Old Kent Road yard, and that her brother Freddy is one of the employees?’ said Boots. ‘What happens if Johnson’s take over?’

  ‘Good question,’ said Sammy.

  ‘Needs a good answer,’ said Boots, ‘or Susie might use her shares to vote against selling.’

  The issue had been a thousand shares, and Sammy had given Susie fifty of his as a wedding present.

  ‘Hold on,’ he said, ‘that’s got to be disallowable, me lawful wedded wife votin’ against me.’

  ‘Lawful wedded wives don’t always take a lot of notice of what’s disallowable,’ said Boots.

  ‘Lawful wedded wives sometimes need a bunch of flowers and some kind advice,’ said Sammy. ‘In any case, I’m not in favour of Jim and Freddy bein’ made surplus to requirements by Johnson’s, so I’d contract for Jim to remain in charge and Freddy’s employment to be guaranteed. Further, there’ll have to be a shareholders’ meetin’ when we’re ready to lay full details of a satisfact’ry offer on the table. Meanwhile, as I’m up to me ears in work, I’ll leave you to nod off. Shame about you feelin’ your age, Boots.’

  ‘I think I’ll last the week out,’ said Boots. He took a phone call as Sammy left, and when that was over he checked on the shareholdings of Adams Scrap Metal. Sammy held three hundred and fifty, he himself two-fifty, Tommy and Lizzy a hundred each, and Chinese Lady, Emily, Vi and Susie fifty each. No wonder Sammy, with four children in mind, was keen. He’d net fourteen thousand quid. And he only needed Lizzy and Tommy to vote with him for the sale to go ahead. Boots had a feeling that to sell would be a mistake, but the temptation might be irresistible to Lizzy and Tommy. They’d pocket four thousand pounds each. A comparative fortune. Further, Adams Enterprises and Adams Fashions would remain untouched.

  But how would the family feel if, in a few years time, Adams Scrap Metal was suddenly worth three times as much as Johnson’s were offering? In that amount of time, the country might be re-arming itself. Come to that, with the market in scrap currently depressed, why did Johnson’s want to buy? They had their own yards, their own headaches in respect of scraping out a profit. Were they looking ahead too?

  I’d say a little investigation is required, thought Boots, and made a phone call to Mrs Rachel Goodman, who had been the one and only girlfriend of Sammy’s when he was young. Rachel, at home, answered the call.

  ‘It’s Boots here, Rachel.’

  ‘My life, what a pleasure, ain’t it?’ said Rachel, who had attended a finishing school but was still a Jewish cockney at heart and could talk like one.

  ‘How would you like to meet me at Simpson’s in the Strand tomorrow and have lunch with me?’ said Boots.

  ‘I’m hearing what I’m listening to?’ said Rachel, whose affection for the Adams’ family ran deep. She could still sigh over Sammy sometimes, and Boots always had the effect of melting her. ‘Chinese Lady’s only oldest son is inviting me to lunch?’

  ‘For the pleasure of your company, of course,’ said Boots, ‘but I won’t say I’m not going to ask you a favour.’

  ‘My dear, ask me a hundred favours,’ said Rachel, ‘I’m only a weak woman who can’t say no to you or Sammy or Tommy. What time shall I meet you?’

  ‘I’ll book a table for twelve-thirty,’ said Boots, who knew that behind all Rachel’s natural warmth and outgoing charm lay a mind as sharp as a needle. ‘Is that convenient?’

  ‘For lunch with you, lovey, any time is convenient.’

  ‘Tomorrow, then,
at twelve-thirty,’ said Boots.

  ‘Will you tell Sammy?’

  ‘Not much,’ said Boots. ‘Sammy regards you as his private property outside of his marriage.’

  Rachel’s warm laughter arrived from the other end of the line.

  ‘I should question that?’ she said.

  ‘See you, Rachel,’ said Boots.

  He went into Emily’s little office. Emily was now secretary to the company, and worked until a quarter to four each day, when she then left to meet Tim from school and to take him home. Boots advised her in his disarming way that he was lunching with Rachel in town tomorrow.

  Emily, not disarmed, said, ‘Oh, you are, are you, my lad? What’s goin’ on?’

  ‘A matter of business,’ said Boots.

  ‘With Rachel, that lush beauty?’ said Emily. ‘Some hopes. I’m puttin’ my foot down.’ There had been a time some years ago when she had behaved like a lukewarm wife, but when she realized he might give his most intimate affections to Polly Simms, she found that her innermost feelings weren’t lukewarm at all. Boots attracted women without even trying. Most, on first meeting him, gave him a second look. A tigress was born in Emily in her determination to keep him. ‘You and your girlfriends,’ she said, but she let go a smile. There was nothing she could do about women giving him the eye and edging up on him. What she did do and was still doing was to let him know she cared for him too much to ever play second fiddle. ‘Lucky for you I trust you,’ she said. She could have said she didn’t trust Polly Simms, or even Rachel for that matter, but she didn’t. Chinese Lady had told her more than once that Boots would never lose his head over any woman as long as he knew he had a caring wife.

  ‘Well, you’re busy and I’m busy,’ said Boots, ‘and I’ll leave it until tonight to tell why I’m having lunch with Rachel. I’ll just say I need the help of a woman with brains.’

  ‘What about my brains?’

  ‘You’re using them every day at your work,’ said Boots. ‘Rachel’s are going spare. There’s my phone ringing. Get your head down, Em.’

  ‘’Appy is the day,’ said Emily.

  Mrs Higgins, standing at the gate of her house in Caulfield Place, saw two new neighbours turn in from Browning Street. The Harper brothers, one the husband of Mrs Harper, that’s who they were. The street kids, of course, regarded the Harpers with curiosity, on account of believing their house was haunted. Kids. They’d believe anything, most of them. Still, it had been horrible, that murder, old Mrs Chivers with her throat cut from ear to ear, so people said, and the police had never found the murderer.

  ‘Evenin’, gents.’ Mrs Higgins addressed the two men as they reached her gate. They were stalwart men, with good looks, their caps and working clothes very respectable. Just home from their work, she supposed. They smiled at her as they passed by.

  ‘Good evening,’ they both said.

  ‘Been a nice day,’ said Mrs Higgins, who’d have liked a bit of a gossip with them, even if they had come from the East End. They were different, East End people. They teemed, that’s what they did. Well, they bred like rabbits in all them tenements and rows of flat-fronted houses, and the kids ran about ragged and bare-footed, and the women screeched like fishwives. And some of the men would murder a woman just for her handbag. Well, that was what she’d heard. She’d bet Jack the Ripper had been born and bred in Shoreditch.

  The two men entered their house and went up to their bedrooms. The woman known as Mrs Agnes Harper came out of the kitchen and called up to them.

  ‘Yer back, then. Yer meal’s nearly ready. Say ten minutes. You ’earing me up there?’

  ‘Yes,’ called the man Wally.

  ‘I did the shoppin’, and got the padlock you wanted,’ she said.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Did I ’ear you say thanks?’

  ‘Many thanks.’

  ‘Pleasure, I’m sure,’ said Mrs Harper, and returned to the kitchen, where she had a little nip of gin to keep her spirits up. The other man walked into Wally’s room.

  ‘A coarse woman,’ he said.

  ‘But a useful cover,’ said Wally.

  ‘Expendable, however?’

  ‘If necessary,’ said Wally.

  Dan Rogers, arriving home, couldn’t find either of his daughters. But he heard Tilly’s sewing-machine going. Up he went and knocked on her door.

  ‘Tilly Thomas?’

  ‘She’s at ’ome, you can come in,’ called Tilly.

  Dan entered, and there they were, Bubbles and Penny-Farving, sitting together in the fireside armchair. Tilly, at her dressmaking work, was facing the window, the light dancing on her dark brown hair.

  ‘’Ello, Dad,’ said Bubbles.

  ‘Ssssh,’ breathed Penny-Farving, ‘it’s no talkin’.’

  ‘You can take them away, Mr Rogers,’ said Tilly.

  ‘Listen, me little sausages,’ said Dan, ‘what’re you doin’ up here?’

  ‘Can we tell Dad, Tilly?’ asked Penny-Farving.

  ‘I’ll tell ’im meself,’ said Tilly. ‘First, you did it on me again, Mr Rogers, you—’

  ‘On me honour as an old Boy Scout, I’m an innocent party,’ said Dan.

  ‘I bet,’ said Tilly. ‘You sneaked off like a slippery Sam, leavin’ me to keep an eye on your gels, and don’t think—’

  ‘I was in a hurry, I can’t say I wasn’t, but I’ve never sneaked off in me life,’ said Dan.

  ‘There’s always a first time,’ said Tilly, ‘and don’t start that interruptin’ stuff all over again. It ain’t polite. Your gels gave me all kinds of ’eadaches this mornin’, yellin’ in the yard, knockin’ the dustbin over and chasin’ someone’s cat. That woman next door knocked and said if I didn’t bring them in out of the yard, she’d chuck washin’-up suds all over them. So this afternoon I brought them up ’ere and made them sit quiet or suffer smacked bottoms.’

  ‘She give us a banana each, though,’ said Penny-Farving.

  ‘She told us she’d give us anuvver one each if we stayed quiet,’ said Bubbles.

  ‘We like bananas,’ said Penny-Farving.

  ‘We don’t like smacked bottoms,’ said Bubbles.

  ‘Have you had yours smacked, then?’ asked Dan.

  ‘They nearly ’ave, once or twice,’ said Tilly, ‘but that’s more your duty than mine.’

  ‘No, it’s not, Dad don’t ever smack our bottoms,’ said Penny-Farving, slightly indignant.

  ‘No comment,’ said Tilly.

  ‘It seems to me I owe you again,’ said Dan. ‘I did tell ’em not to be a worry to you.’

  ‘’Ave you ever heard of water off a duck’s back?’ asked Tilly. ‘Well, you’ve got two ducks, and there’s both of them.’

  ‘All the same, thanks a lot for takin’ them under your wing this afternoon,’ said Dan.

  ‘It was to save meself from bein’ driven to drink,’ said Tilly. ‘They’re all yours now, Mr Rogers, and I ’ope you did a bit of serious thinkin’ today. Wait a tick, you gels.’ She went to the cupboard serving as a larder and found two bananas. She gave one each to the girls. ‘There, you didn’t do too bad this afternoon. Off you go with your dad now.’

  ‘Oh, fanks,’ said Bubbles.

  ‘We’ll sit wiv you tomorrer, if you like,’ said Penny-Farving.

  ‘All I’ll see of you tomorrow will be when I measure you for your new frocks,’ said Tilly. ‘I’ve got calls on customers to make tomorrow, Mr Rogers, if you’d kindly remember that.’

  ‘I’m hopin’ to get a girl called Cassie Ford here tomorrow to keep an eye on things,’ said Dan. ‘Well, thanks again, Tilly, you’re a sport. Come on, sausages, let’s go down and see about a bit of supper, eh?’

  Down they went, and peace and quiet made a welcome visit to the upstairs back.

  At seven-twenty that evening, the door of Mrs Brown’s house opened to a pull on the latchcord, and a familiar voice floated through the passage.

  ‘Coo-ee, Freddy, can I come in?’

  ‘No
, not tonight,’ called Freddy, ‘I’m in bed with a broken leg.’

  A fat lot of good that did him, because Cassie was in the kitchen almost before he’d finished speaking. Sally was out with friends, but Freddy’s mum and dad were present.

  ‘Oh, good evenin’, Mrs Brown, and how’d you do, Mr Brown?’ said Freddy’s blithe spirit. ‘Freddy, you ’aven’t broken your leg, you’re standin’ up. Can you come ’ome with me and spend the evenin’ helpin’ Cecil to do more talkin’? He still isn’t sayin’ much.’

  ‘Give ’im a drop of port,’ said Freddy.

  ‘Well, I must say a drop of port livens me up myself,’ said Mrs Brown, ‘but I don’t know I’ve ever heard what it does to parrots.’

  ‘Probably knocks ’em off their perch,’ said Mr Brown.

  ‘We don’t ’ave any port except at Christmas,’ said Cassie. ‘Come on, Freddy, let’s go and talk to Cecil. Me dad says you’ll be very welcome – oh, did I tell you he said it’s all right for me to be your girlfriend now I’m over fourteen?’

  ‘Yes, you told me,’ said Freddy, ‘but we’re still mates.’

  ‘No, me dad says girls can’t be mates when they’re over fourteen.’

  ‘Blokes can,’ said Freddy.

  ‘Well, I’m not a bloke,’ said Cassie, ‘I’m a girl.’

  ‘Which I like you for, Cassie,’ said Mr Brown.

  ‘Yes, I do too,’ said Cassie.

  The front door knocker sounded.

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Freddy, and found the caller was Mr Dan Rogers, a friendly and cheerful neighbour, who looked as if he could play a good game of rugby football. ‘Oh, ’ello, Mr Rogers.’

  ‘How’s yerself, Freddy?’ smiled Dan. ‘I wondered if your long-standin’ mate Cassie Ford was here.’

  ‘She mostly is,’ said Freddy, ‘it’s ’er second ’ome, you might say, and she’s ’ere now.’

  ‘Could I have a word with her?’

  ‘Come in,’ said Freddy. He took Dan through to the kitchen, and Dan said hello to his neighbours. Mrs Brown gave a little touch or two to her hair. She liked Mr Rogers. He was what Walworth women called manly, which was how most Walworth women liked their men, as long as they didn’t break up the furniture. It was nice Mr Rogers had a lady lodger now, seeing his wife had as good as deserted him.