A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [118]
‘He’s home? I’ve just been down to the police station,’ Fifi exclaimed, shocked that Tomkins had let her pour out all that about Stan without telling her they’d let him go. ‘Why on earth didn’t they tell me? There I was pleading for him!’
‘You went to plead for Stan?’ Yvette asked, looking puzzled.
Fifi explained why she was there, telling her all about her trip to the depot and the man in the car. To her shock, Yvette rounded on her.
‘You silly, silly girl,’ she said. ‘You must not get involved in this.’
‘But I had to tell them that I’d seen the man before going into Alfie’s,’ Fifi said indignantly.
‘No, you should not ’ave. It ees better to leave such things alone. These are bad men, Fifi. If they knew you were watching them they would .. .’ She paused to make a gesture of slitting her throat.
Fifi laughed nervously. ‘You know them then?’ she asked.
Yvette caught hold of Fifi’s arm. Her dark eyes blazed. ‘I ’ave lived ’ere for long enough to understand when it is better to look the other way. You are like a child, Fifi. You weesh to meddle with everything. You tell people things best kept to yourself.’
Fifi was staggered by the woman’s response. ‘I only tell you things. I thought we were friends,’ she said indignantly.
Yvette’s face softened and she put one hand caressingly on Fifi’s cheek. ‘It is because you are my friend I weesh to prevent any harm to you,’ she said softly. ‘I ’ave told you many times you should leave this street. But you are still ’ere.’
‘We are going, as soon as we can find somewhere to live.’ Fifi felt as if she was being told off by her mother.
‘That is good,’ Yvette said. ‘And when you go, tell no one where. Not even people you think are your friends.’
Fifi was so unnerved by Yvette’s reaction that when she got home, she lay down on her bed for a while. Anyone else would have either told her she had an overactive imagination, or been hanging on her every word. But Yvette had sounded really scared, as if she knew absolutely everything about this business and was alarmed Fifi had stumbled on part of it!
Did she know the man in the red Jaguar? Was it him she thought was dangerous? Could she have still been in her flat when the murder took place and heard or seen something?
The police believed Yvette had gone out early that morning to do a fitting, and presumably they checked with Yvette’s client as they’d checked on everyone else’s alibi, Dan’s included. But supposing they hadn’t? Could she have been there?
Fifi told herself that this was impossible, yet her mind kept recalling things Yvette had said in the past, before Angela was killed. ‘I have seen and heard many terrible things.’ What exactly had she seen and heard? Fifi had assumed at the time it was just fighting, maybe Alfie hitting Molly, even the kids getting a beating, the same sort of things almost everyone in the street had heard. But maybe it wasn’t just that?
Everyone had remarked that it was odd Alfie wouldn’t name the men at that last card game. Now Fifi had seen for herself the hideous squalor inside that house, she couldn’t imagine anyone in their right mind wanting to spend an evening playing cards there.
What if the cards weren’t the real attraction?
‘No,’ she whispered aloud as a hideous thought came into her mind. ‘It couldn’t be that!’
Yet Angela had been raped and murdered, that was fact. Why, if those other men had really been only drinking and playing cards, hadn’t they come forward? Maybe Alfie was speaking the truth when he said he hadn’t killed Angela, but he couldn’t admit who did do it because he was too scared?
Just like Yvette.
Dan arrived home at half past one. Fifi had calmed down by then, even told herself that she was letting her imagination run away with her. She had decided that she was going to make it up with Dan as soon as he got home, whatever time that was.
When she heard him greet Frank jovially down in the hall, she took it that he’d decided not to work all