A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [64]
‘As if I could live without you,’ she said, leaning forward to kiss him. ‘And a couple of days of Mum and Dad bending my ear will be more than enough to send me scooting back to you.’
Frank and Stan met up on Friday evening in the Rifleman. As always at the weekend it was packed to capacity, and because it was a warm night, the doors were propped open and many people had taken their drinks outside.
The news of Dan being attacked had been passed around, and Frank had found himself the centre of attention since he arrived in the pub because he lived downstairs to the couple.
Frank told them all he knew, and as always when there was trouble in the street, Alfie’s name was put in the frame, but Cecil Helass was quick to point out that Alfie had been too busy thrashing Molly to be held responsible.
‘He could’ve ordered that half-wit nephew of his to do it,’ Frank said contemptuously.
Someone said that he’d seen Mike come home with Dora after the fight was over, and a couple more people confirmed they’d seen that too.
‘But young Fifi! Who is watching out for her while her husband is in hospital?’ Stan asked nervously.
‘She’s gone home to Bristol,’ Frank said. ‘Dan made her go.’
Stan waited until the other men had moved away from him and Frank before questioning his friend more closely.
‘Fifi tell me she fall out with her family over Dan,’ he said in puzzlement. ‘It is good that she is not alone now, but I think this put Dan more in bad light with her parents.’
Frank nodded, knowing exactly what his friend meant. ‘I can see why they didn’t think much of him. I thought he were a bit of a wide boy when he moved in.’
‘Wide boy?’ Stan repeated. ‘What is that?’
‘A bit fly, a rascal,’ Frank explained, and chuckled. ‘But I were wrong about him, Dan’s a decent sort, even Miss Diamond hasn’t found anything to complain about.’
Stan smirked. He knew how fussy the woman upstairs to Frank was, she was considered to be a fire-eating dragon by almost everyone in the street. ‘So Dan is worried the man who attacked him might hurt Fifi too?’
‘I reckon that’s about the size of it.’
Stan mulled this over for a moment. ‘But when Fifi tell her family Dan has been beaten up, they will be certain he is a bad man.’
Frank sighed. ‘Yeah, maybe, their sort always think the worst of everyone. They can’t believe a working man can be honest or have much the same values as them.’
‘This is how it is for me too,’ Stan replied sadly. ‘Because my English not so good, they suspect me of many bad things.’
Frank put his hand on his friend’s shoulder in sympathy. ‘You should ignore them, pal. They wink about Yvette being a sex-pot just because she’s French. Danny O’Connor, at number nine, gets treated like he’s thick just because he’s Irish. I’ve never seen Yvette with a man and Danny has a degree in engineering. Daft prejudice, that’s what it is.’
The two men nursed their pints in silence for some little time, both immersed in their private thoughts.
‘We must do something about the Muckles,’ Stan suddenly burst out. ‘It is not right for so many to live in fear of them.’
‘What can we do?’ Frank shrugged despairingly. ‘I’m too old to give Alfie a good hiding and anyway, Molly is the one behind most of their villainy.’
‘Perhaps we frame them for a crime?’ Stan said, his doleful expression brightening. ‘We plan something that would put them away for a long time?’
Cecil Helass and his drinking partner Bob Osbourne, who lived at number 7, had been standing close enough to Frank and Stan to overhear what Stan had said.
‘Now you’re talking!’ Bob said with a wide grin. He and Cecil had both recently retired and they spent more time in the Rifleman than their wives liked, often reeling home so drunk they could barely walk. ‘We’ll give you a hand.’
‘It would have to be murder to be sure they would go for good,’ Frank said laughingly. ‘I’d cheerfully kill anyone in their family, even the kids.’
Stan nodded in agreement before adding jokingly, ‘Then perhaps we kill one