The face he saw when he came to was his mother's, bending over him, gently coaxing him back from the blackness. 'Billy! Billy what happened, my love?' she cried, frowning with worry. 'You were so long, I was worried. I went looking for you. What happened? Where's the bread?'
Beyond his mother's face, he saw the sky and the towering blind gable of the house adjoining the skittle yard. Pain jabbed at every rib and limb. He was lying in the narrow space between the gable and Mrs Seaton's row of rabbit hutches, a creaking terrace of little shanties devised from old boxes and tarpaulin. Nettles stung his bare legs. The taste of blood was in his mouth.
Mrs Seaton had joined them. 'I never heard a thing, Marian,' she gushed apologetically, bending to peer at the boy. 'I've been in all morning. I even came out to feed my bunnies and I still never saw nowt. Then I heard that Mr Pearce shouting - you know, him from the chemists. He was out here yelling at somebody. I came out to see what all the fuss was about and I saw him go chasing off after a man. That's when I found your Billy, bless him - and then you came. I feel such a fool.'
'Never mind Madge, I think he's all right now,' said Marian Perks, gingerly touching her son's bruises.
The bread and his Easter egg were gone. So too was the one-n-tuppence change he had had. His mother was too busy fussing about his injuries to think about it right then, but Billy knew she would soon ask for it. She watched every penny and she would not be pleased at losing her bread and her money too, let alone the hard-earned chocolate egg for which she had saved several weeks' sweet ration.
What had happened, Billy wondered, staggering groggily as he was helped up. Everything hurt. Congealed blood from a wound in his hair glued one eyelid shut. His lips felt blubbery and sore.
Marian Perks fussed, dusting him down and pulling at his limbs, working each joint in search of other injuries. At last, she pronounced him a survivor. 'You seem all right. You've a cut on your scalp, but I think it looks worse than it is.' She hugged him gently, kissing his forehead. 'Thank goodness you're all right. I was searching for you for ages. A strange tramp came and told me where you were, but he looked so weird, with horrible scars on his face, it put me off. I didn't know whether to believe him.'
Billy watched her groggily, and waited for her news to worsen, certain it would. 'What tramp?' he mumbled.
'Oh some scruffy man in an old air-force greatcoat,' she said, at last seeming satisfied that he was not too badly injured. 'You'll do I think. You look like the wreck of the Hesperus, but you'll survive. What on earth were you doing, Billy? Were you climbing?' She turned her face up to the house gable towering above them. 'What on earth were you climbing up there for?'
'No, Mam, I never,' protested Billy. 'I was trying to get this,' he explained, showing her the crumpled notice, which had somehow survived intact. 'It's blown off that door. I was gerrin it to put it back. It's official tha knows.'
'Don't thee and thou Billy,' she scolded mildly. And taking the notice from him gave him a quizzical stare. 'Well how did you get into this state then?'
'I was picking it up and somebody hit me. I never saw a thing.' He bent to demonstrate his recovery of the fluttering notice and found a builder's nail bar lying at his feet. Picking it up he inspected it carefully. 'Is this yours, Mrs Seaton?'
'No love, what is it?' she said, peering at the crow bar and running a podgy finger along its surface of freshly painted red lead.
'It's a jimmy - for pulling nails and levering things.'
'I've never seen it. There shouldn't be owt back here,' she said, with a regal wobble of her head. 'I'm always clearing rubbish out. It's kids what chuck stuff in. It's endless keeping it clear. Well, I mean to say, you don't want rats do you, Marian?'
Marian Perks nodded, frowning at the idea. 'Did they hit you with that? It could've killed you. Didn't you see anybody at all?'
'I never saw nowt,' he moaned, quickly correcting himself before his mother did, 'I mean - nothing.'
'All right, love. I believe you,' said his mam. 'Come on, I'll take you home. We'll get some Dettol on those cuts. You need to lie down.' She wrapped an arm around his shoulders and steered him towards their home at the end of the street. 'I'll tell the constable when I see him, Madge,' she called back. 'They'll probably come to take a look round. Somebody should pay. It's not right. You were safer in the blackout.'
Mrs Seaton nodded. 'Maybe that Mr Pearce will catch whoever it was.'
'Let's hope so,' agreed Mrs Perks. 'Now come on, Billy love, let's get you to bed. Oh, you had better give me my money back. I'll need to go and get the bread, and you never know - maybe there's a special treat for you.'
Billy burst into tears and clung to his mother, sobbing miserably.
……...
CHAPTER THREE
The next few days drifted blissfully by as Billy reclined on the settee wrapped in a crocheted blanket, which hitherto, the Perks' wire haired terrier, Ruff, had assumed was his bed blanket. Yvonne and Kick visited frequently to marvel at his injuries. His mother cooed and coddled him, doled out double helpings of National Health orange juice and an extra spoonful of malt each morning. Billy's biggest fear was that he would not be able to keep it all going past the Easter holiday and so get time off school, as well as being excused his usual chores.
With his friends around him, he played the invalid, as they pondered the mystery of the Star Woman's death. They drew diagrams and listed evidence and suspicions, mostly suspicions, until they had convinced themselves that she had definitely been, "done in".
Billy's life of ease ended abruptly when his mother discovered him playing in the coal cellar, wearing a gas mask and his dad's old A.R.P. steel helmet. In a few hectic moments, the dog recovered his bed blanket, and Billy and his friends found themselves booted outside to play – it was raining.
*
As the Easter break wound down and the return to school drew ever closer, Billy saw less of Kick Morley. He'd been called to football practice. The Bole Hills, a cinder pitch high up on a windswept hill above Walkley was the venue for numerous football teams, juniors and adults. Kick spent much of his time up there. A few weeks before Easter, he'd been picked for his school's First Juniors, a challenge he'd risen to enthusiastically.
After notching up five goals in his first two games, he was enjoying celebrity and indispensability in equal measure. Billy tried to be pleased for him, though he was annoyed that Kick's frequent absences did not help their search for old Annabel's killer. Or perhaps, he wondered, was he just envious of his friend's success?
Since the police had sealed the house, Billy knew nobody had done a proper investigation. He imagined all sorts of clues lying around inside just waiting for somebody to recognise their significance. But, padlocked and sealed by the police, it was an offence even to go near the place without good reason. The coroner's office was silent, doing whatever coroners did, and the newspapers had not mentioned the Star Woman for more than two weeks. As far as he knew, nothing new had happened in the three weeks since the excitement on Orchard Road. When he tried explaining his frustrations to his father, he was grumpily fobbed off. 'Let the police get on with their jobs. You keep your nose out. You should be doing your schoolwork not pestering everybody about murders and such.'
*
'Mam, how old is granny?'
'The same age as her tongue and a bit younger than her teeth.'
'Ooh you always say that. What's wrong with telling somebody how old you are? I just want to know if she's older than the Star Woman was.'
'Go out and play, you're getting under my feet. It's nearly stopped raining and I need to beat the peg-rugs before it does. I don't want dust flying all over.' She shooed him outdoors into a gloomy drizzle.
The street was quiet. As if by magic, Yvonne arrived and joined him to swing on the front gate. Apart from a few soggy house sparrows sulking and squabbling, the only movement they saw was Mr Leaper's horse and cart. It approached slowly down the steep hill, its iron tyres grinding c
halky lines into the road surface behind the steady plod of a big grey mare. Yvonne gave the carter a half-hearted wave.
'Where's old Leaper going with his cart?' Billy whispered, puzzled by the absence of its usual gay pyramid of fruit and vegetables.
'We could follow him and find out,' she suggested. 'He'll let us gerron for a ride if we want.'
Mr Leaper was a large, amiable man with a beaming red face and a constant line in chat. No matter where or when he was seen, he seemed to be delivering a punch line, or enjoying one. He was a greengrocer whose shop was normally on the back of his cart. He trundled it around the steep streets, stopping every so often. He would put a nosebag on his horse and level his weighing scales with a battered brass spirit level, ready to weigh out fruit and vegetables to his customers. They would gather on the kerb, emerging from their dwellings at his approach, as if in receipt of some telepathic invitation. Today the colourful terraces of fruit and vegetables, the lush swags of cloth vine leaves and flowers strung over artificial grass were gone, stripped away to reveal the bare boards of the wooden float.
As the cart drew near Yvonne stepped up to the horse's big grey head. 'Hello Mr Leaper. How's Beattie today?'
'She's champion, love. And why not? She eats better than me and thee put together. I doubt if'n king's hoss is any better fed.' Mr Leaper pushed back his shoulders nodding and bobbing his head as if acknowledging applause from around the street. His russet face bore testament to a life spent in the open air. An ancient cap, its peak worn shiny where he handled it, covered his head. A faded brown warehouse coat stretched across his broad front beneath a weary leather belt, whose buckle bore the badge of the Royal Artillery.
'Where's yer fruit?' asked Yvonne.
'Well, I'm on official business, tha sees,' confided Mr Leaper, puffing out his chest. 'I've had to clear everything off'n me cart so I can load the old Star Woman's stuff on it. I've been retained.'
'Retained?' queried Yvonne.
'Aye, retained. It's a posh word for saying, "G'en t'job".'
'What job have they g'en thee?' Billy asked.
'Hi ham retained,' he said, adopting his telephone voice, 'to take her stuff to the h-Ebenezer Chapel's bottom 'all. They're gonna sell it to pay for her funeral and everything.'
'Isn't she buried yet?' Yvonne cried, distressed to think that a three week old corpse was waiting for a furniture sale before it could be laid to rest.
'Oh aye, she's been buried a while. No, this's for the solicitors and bigwigs to gerrit it all sorted out. They've lots o' dotting and crossing to do before it's done proper. And tha knows what landlords are like? He'll want to rent her house to somebody else. He's already lost three weeks rent. He'll be sweating soggy pie crusts.'
'But the police have locked it up with a padlock,' Billy said. 'Nobody's been able to gerrin since she died.'
'Well I know that, but I just told thee, I'm retained. It's official. I've gorra key.'
Billy's heart leapt. This could be his chance to get inside the house to do some real detective work.
'I've had to fetch t'keys from t'police. I had to show 'em the letter from the solicitor and everything. It says I can remove property for sale or other disposal. That means I can even burn owt that I think is just rubbish and can't go in the sale.'
Billy's gaze bored into Mr Leaper, willing him to ask him for his help. 'But it's a big job for thee – all by thee sen, int it?' he suggested, adopting a strained expression to emphasise the wearying enormity of the task. 'You'll never lift everything by thee sen.'
Mr Leaper looked alarmed. 'Well aye it is. Mind you, I'm used to lifting tha knows. Spuds come in hundredweight seks and I carry 'em all way up me yard to me barn.'
'Well I don't know. I couldn't possibly help you for less than threpenz.' Billy said, frowning as though he'd been strenuously propositioned.
'Threpenz! Threpenz a-piece, does tha mean?' cried Mr Leaper.
'Well go on then, twist my arm, tuppenz,' Billy said.
Mr Leaper's face brightened uncertainly. He knew he had achieved a commercial victory of some sort, but was unable to decide quite how.
It was Billy's dream come true; not only to be invited into the old house by an adult with a perfect right to be there, but also he would earn two pennies for his trouble. 'Yeah, we'll help thee, wont we Yvonne?'
Yvonne, looking pale, smiled weakly. The prospect of poking about in a dead woman's house and belongings was not quite so appealing to her. She felt events were taking her over. Nevertheless, she reluctantly agreed.
Five minutes later Mr Leaper halted Beattie at the end of the skittle yard, a few feet short of the Star Woman's padlocked cottage. He put the nosebag on the old mare and rubbed her neck affectionately. Beattie dropped her head and flicked her ears.
'It's stopped raining, thank God,' Mr Leaper observed, squinting at the sun poking from the silver edge of a grey cloud. 'That'll save us having to sheet it all when we gerrit loaded.' He began patting his pockets and looking about as though he could not remember why he was where he was. At last, finding a key with a brown paper label tied to it with string, he pulled it from his pocket and tossed it to Billy. 'Here, thee get the door undone. I've just to get some cigs and I'll be back in a tick.'
Billy caught the key, delighted. Knowing Mr Leaper's fondness for gossip, he guessed it could be quite some time before he returned from the shop to do any work. He and Yvonne would have the cottage to themselves.
The key turned easily in the padlock, but when he tried to open the door, it wouldn't budge. 'You need the nail,' Yvonne reminded him reproachfully. She took it from the windowsill and handed it to him with a wry grin. 'You, of all people should know that.'
He looked at it solemnly. It was the sneck nail that had started him on his trail. Inserting it into the sneck-hole, he pressed it down with his thumb to lift the latch. The door swung open slowly, as if trying not to disturb the air inside. 'Don't touch nowt, no matter what,' he instructed Yvonne firmly.
Inside felt cool and musty. The sounds of the trams banging along on South Road seemed distant and muted. A shaft of sunlight leaned in from a slit of window to spear the coconut fibre matting on the stone floor. Flashing sparkles of dust spiralled slowly in its beam.
'Don't touch nowt.'
'Yeah-yeah, you said already. I'm not soft.' Yvonne's patience was worn down by foreboding. She was in no mood for Billy's bossiness. 'What are we going to do first?' she demanded, determined to bring him to heel.
Billy looked doubtful. 'Have a good look round,' he said.
'That's no good,' she snapped. 'You need a plan, and you need to record everything. I suppose you've brought a pencil and a notebook?' She knew very well that he had not.
Billy gaped penitently.
'No, you didn't,' she said triumphantly. 'Luckily there's some paper on the floor over there, and I've gorra pencil in my pocket.'
Trying to look disinterested, Billy glanced at the few sheets of lined paper she had pointed out on the floor in front of the large sideboard. They were like pages torn from a school exercise book.
'When you stop nagging me not to touch owt,' Yvonne went on, 'I can gerrit and start writing notes. Then we'll be doing a proper investigation.'
Slightly chastened, but grateful for the suggestion, he pretended not to hear her. 'It might be a clue,' he said, adding for emphasis. 'Everything could be a clue - for example, where did the paper come from? Why is it on the floor?'
'Trees and gravity,' Yvonne quipped, unwilling to relinquish the upper hand. Bending she moved to pick up the paper. A small flash of reflected sunlight caught her eye. It had sparked out from under the sideboard. She moved her head slowly, hoping to see a repeat of the reflected flash and pinpoint its source. There it was again, a brief spark of brilliance. Fixing its position, she bent close and saw it was a fragment of silver coloured metal. Using one of the sheets of the writing paper, she carefully scooped it up and brought it to the table. 'Look at this, Billy. What d
o you think it is?'
Billy had found a spent match in the hearth and was staring at it as if it contained the answer to the meaning of life itself. 'I've found a dead match.'
'Was that murdered too?' she growled, annoyed that he was ignoring her discovery.
At last, Billy turned from his matchstick and peered dismissively at the silver sliver lying on the sheet of exercise book paper. His expression changed to one of eager curiosity. Though smaller than a grain of rice, he could clearly see that it had blood on it. 'Chuffin eck,' he breathed.
'There's a hair and some blood on it,' Yvonne said. 'I didn't touch it. I got it up with this paper. If it's her blood they'll be able to tell, as long as we don't touch it.'
Studying the fragment, he pulled the paper carefully towards him. 'We need sommat to put it in.'
'Like an envelope or a jar or sommat?' Yvonne suggested, beginning to search in a cupboard under a stone sink. She found a battered cardboard box containing an assortment of medicine bottles, ointment jars and bandages. She began lifting them out, searching for a suitable container. 'Do you think we can throw these out?' she asked Billy, showing him a little glass jar containing a few mouldy looking pills.
Billy took it from her fingers and stared at the contents. 'Gimbals! They look like mouse droppings.'
'It's some sort of medicine. It's gorra label.'
Billy peered at the dusty label. It looked very old. The words, Three times a day, were just visible in faded ink. There was nothing else written or printed there, no dates or names. 'It looks ancient. I don't think it'll matter if we chuck 'em out.' He handed the little jar back to her. 'But clean it out with sommat dry, we don't want any water left in it. It might spoil the clue.'
'Contaminate it,' Yvonne corrected grandly, earning herself a sneering glance. She shook the contents out into the sink and then blew in to the jar to clean it out.
Billy leaned over the table inspecting the bit of silver metal. 'Can you see what it is?' Yvonne asked, bringing her nose close to the object. 'It's like sommat broke off'n sommat, but what?'
Using the notepaper, Billy scooped up the clue and slid it, with its hair and blood, into the pill jar and refitted the cork stopper. He slipped it into his pocket. 'Bunny Parfitt's gorra microscope. He gorrit for Christmas. We could ask him for a lend of it.'