A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [140]
‘You had to tell them it was me who went to the police? Didn’t you?’
‘Oui,’ Yvette said in a sad little whisper. ‘They say they will cut off my fingers if I don’t tell them. Wizout my fingers I cannot sew. I think you ’ave Dan to look after you, you will be safe.’
While Fifi still didn’t know how the men discovered that someone in Dale Street had been to the police, they obviously assumed it was Yvette because she lived right next door to the Muckles.
Fifi couldn’t feel angry that Yvette had told on her. She knew she’d sing like a canary herself if someone was threatening to cut her fingers off. All she felt was deep, deep sorrow that through her, Yvette would have to be killed too.
‘You are angry wiz me,’ Yvette whispered brokenly.
‘No I’m not,’ Fifi said, putting her arm around the older woman. ‘It’s you who should be angry with me, you warned me to mind my own business enough times. This is my fault.’
‘It will be okay,’ Yvette said, kissing Fifi’s forehead comfortingly. ‘Your Dan, he will get ’elp for us.’
Fifi had to admit then that Dan had walked out, and that she hadn’t told him about the man in the Jaguar anyway. ‘It might be days before anyone misses us,’ she finished up. She almost added that they might be dead by then, but she managed to stop herself in time.
‘We mustn’t panic,’ Fifi said after a couple of minutes’ silence. ‘I haven’t given up on Martin yet. He might help us.’
The day passed very slowly. The sun came out around eleven in the morning, slanting down through the narrow windows and making them feel warm enough to divide the pork pie in two and eat it. They decided to leave the cake, a large currant bun, until dusk, just in case the men didn’t come back with more food. They dozed on the mattress, Fifi climbed the bars again and again for some exercise, and they talked a little, but although Yvette seemed to appreciate Fifi telling her about her childhood and her friends back in Bristol she was mostly silent, perhaps dwelling on what their end might be.
As it began to get dark, they tore the bun in half and ate it, then just sat on the mattress watching the patch of sky visible in the window grow gradually darker and darker.
‘I was so scared when it got dark yesterday,’ Fifi admitted. ‘I don’t think I could have stood a whole night alone.’
‘The dark will not hurt you,’ Yvette said, taking Fifi’s hand in hers and squeezing it. ‘It is people who hurt you.’
‘But the mice and rats, I can’t bear the thought of them,’ Fifi admitted.
‘They will not come near us,’ Yvette said firmly. ‘We ’ave not left one crumb of food for them. In ze rest of the barn there is bits of wheat, that is all they want. I would rather spend the night with a rat than a man who wishes to do me harm.’
They waited and waited, but Martin and Del didn’t come and both women’s stomachs were growling with hunger. Eventually they gave up hoping for food and lay down on the mattress. They were cold too. Yvette put her coat over the blanket, but it made little difference.
Fifi wondered if killing someone by starvation could be classified as murder, or would it be called ‘misadventure’ or some such thing if their captors claimed they’d been unable to get back? How long would it take? Two weeks, three? Or longer still? But she didn’t voice her anxiety as she felt entirely responsible for their plight.
Fifi had a dream that she was lying on a beach sunbathing. She woke to find it was sunshine on her face, coming from the high window.
Yvette was standing up stretching; she turned and smiled down at Fifi. ‘It does not seem so bad when the sun shines,’ she said. ‘But I weesh for a cup of coffee.’
Fifi looked at her watch and saw it was nearly ten. She was astounded she had managed to sleep so long, and remarked on it.
‘I think ze body knows when there is nothing to get up for,’ Yvette said. ‘When I first came to England I used to sleep from Saturday right to Monday morning. It was cold; I had little money and no friends then. Sleep was good.’
Fifi got up and used the bucket