A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [59]
‘Did you do what I said?’ he was asking Molly.
‘Course I did. The whole street will say you was ’ere. Did you collar ’im?’
‘Yeah. But I think I ’it ’im too ’ard.’E went down like a ton of bricks.’
Mike went on down the stairs. ‘What you done?’ he asked, thinking Alfie looked scared. ‘Was it the geyser across the road?’
Alfie nodded, and grinned humourlessly. ‘Reckon I might ’ave finished ’im off and all.’E looked as dead as a doornail when I left ’im. You get off now down the back way and meet our Dora, she’ll be waiting outside the Odeon. Anyone asks, you’ve bin wiv ’er all night.’
Chapter seven
Dan came round sufficiently to know he was lying on the ground, but when he tried to move, sharp pains shot through both his head and his ribs.
He lay still for a moment, trying to work out where he was and what had happened to him. He remembered leaving the building site with the other men clearly enough. It was almost dark and as they got to the alleyway which was a short cut to the tube station, the others said they were going for a pint. They asked him to go with them, but he turned them down because Fifi was waiting for him.
The last thing he could recall as he turned into the alley was Owen the chippie shouting out for him to mind the dog shit as the smell of it on a man’s boots killed any woman’s passion.
That was it. Nothing more, and he guessed he was still in the alley as it was so dark. And he could smell dog shit. Therefore, it stood to reason someone must have crept up behind him and hit him hard on the head. But why? It was a Thursday, not pay day, and he hadn’t fallen out with anyone. Perhaps whoever did it thought he was someone else?
He attempted to get up, but the pain in his head was so bad he couldn’t. Then he heard the sound of footsteps coming towards him.
‘Are you all right, mate?’ a male voice enquired.
Dan could see two people but they were indistinct and out of focus. He managed to tell them he’d been attacked.
They lifted him up on to his feet and then, supporting him between them, they helped him walk down the alley towards the main road at the end of it. They asked him where he was hurt, where he lived and who attacked him, but he was in such pain he couldn’t answer.
‘Christ Almighty!’ one of them exclaimed once they reached the lights on the main road and they could see him properly. ‘You’ve been given a right going over. We’d better call an ambulance.’
‘My wife!’ Dan managed to get out. ‘Got to get home.’
‘She’ll have fifty fits if you go home like that,’ the man said. ‘You’ve got blood all over you. You need a doctor.’
Fifi’s eyes kept moving from the clock to the window. She was growing ever more anxious about Dan. He couldn’t work once it was dark, and she didn’t think he would go off to the pub with the other men, not when she was expecting him home.
It was after eleven now and thankfully all quiet again over at the Muckles’. The fight had begun soon after it got dark, and because they had only the thinnest of covering over their window she had seen it all.
She had watched the silhouettes of Alfie and Molly laying into each other like maniacs, with blaring music accompanying them. At the height of it all she’d been so frightened she’d gone down to see Miss Diamond, to ask if she thought they should call the police.
Fifi was always wary of bothering Miss Diamond as she seemed to be the kind of person who wanted to maintain her distance from other people. She always spoke if she ran into Fifi or Dan on the landings, but it was invariably a brief interchange. Fifi was as curious about this big, striking woman with dark brown hair as she was about Yvette. She was about forty, exceptionally well groomed with an elaborate beehive which looked as if it had been glued in place, she never had visitors, and aside from going to work at the telephone exchange, she rarely went out. Dan joked that she was related to Attila the Hun.
Fifi had caught glimpses of her flat when the doors were open. The front room was her sitting room, her furnishing style plain but rather classy with a