A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [44]
Fifi half expected Angela to run off once they got to Dale Street, but she didn’t, not even when Yvette Dupré came out of the shop right in front of them.
‘’Ello, Fifi,’ she said. ‘’Ow are you?’
Dan referred to her as the French mistress; he said her accent was the sexiest he’d ever heard. Fifi agreed, but it was the only sexy thing about the woman. Someone had said that she wasn’t even forty, but she looked middle-aged in clothes left over from the war years. On the rare occasions when she went out she wore a grey mid-calf-length fitted coat and a felt hat. Dan called it her Resistance outfit, and said she wore it to hide her astoundingly voluptuous figure, which no man would be able to resist.
Fifi had called on her just a few days after they moved in to ask her to replace the zip in the skirt of the suit she needed for interviews. She found Yvette warm and friendly, and although she didn’t invite her in, she said she would gladly replace the zip and bring it back later.
Dan was of course entirely wrong about her figure; she was very thin, no curves at all showing in a plain dark brown wool dress. Yet close up she was rather beautiful, with large, very dark eyes and a soft, full mouth. Fifi didn’t understand why she pulled her hair back off her face so severely, and why when she made elegant, fashionable clothes for other people, she should choose to look so prim and frumpy herself. She hoped eventually to get to know the woman well enough to persuade her into covering up the grey in her hair with some dye, to wear makeup and change her style of clothes. But she hadn’t got anywhere near close enough for that yet.
‘I’m fine, thank you,’ Fifi replied in answer to the question of how she was. Normally she was eager to stop to chat with Yvette because she was so intriguing, but with Angela in tow she needed to get home as quickly as possible.
‘Sacré bleu,’ Yvette exclaimed as she saw Angela’s rapidly blackening eye. ‘’Oo did that to you?’
‘Need you ask?’ Fifi said. ‘I’m taking her home with me to bathe it.’
‘Ees that wise?’ Yvette said softly.
In a previous conversation Yvette had told Fifi that it was hell living right next door to the Muckles. Her kitchen window was overlooked by theirs, and she heard and saw the most hideous things. Fifi hadn’t yet managed to get the woman to divulge any details, not just because there had been no opportunity, but because Yvette appeared to be as frightened of the Muckles as Mrs Jarvis.
‘Probably not, but I’m going to do it anyway,’ Fifi said defiantly. Yvette made a gesture with her hands implying she thought such action was foolhardy, then she turned and walked away.
Fifi settled Angela in a chair holding some ice cubes in a bag over her eye, then indicated to Dan he was to come outside on to the landing with her.
‘You must go to the police and report Alfie,’ she whispered, turning on the cold tap so Angela couldn’t hear what they were saying.
‘We can’t go grassing them up,’ Dan said, shaking his head.
‘Why ever not?’ Fifi exclaimed. ‘Surely you don’t agree with a grown man punching a small child?’
‘No, I don’t,’ Dan said, looking concerned. ‘What he needs is a good kicking. But if the police go round there Alfie will make sure Angela tells a different story and nothing will happen to him. Then he’ll lay into her again.’
‘So what do you suggest we do?’ Fifi asked with heavy sarcasm. ‘Just patch her up and send her home? Then curse ourselves later when we hear more screaming?’
‘I didn’t say I wasn’t going to do anything,’ Dan said. His face darkened and his eyes glinted in a manner Fifi had never seen before. He was always so gentle with her, but she suddenly felt she was seeing a more dangerous side of him he’d kept hidden from her.
‘You aren’t going to hit him, are you?’ she said in alarm. She knew that with his background, Dan was unlikely to walk away from a fight.
‘No, I’ll warn him,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll tell him I’m on his case and if it happens again he’ll be sorry. There’s only