A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [69]
‘He’s crafty enough for that,’ Frank said thoughtfully. ‘Maybe you’d better tell the police what you think.’
‘I can’t,’ Fifi sighed. ‘Dan was a bit sarcastic about the Muckles getting blamed for everything. It’s going to be hard enough telling him why I came home so quickly.’
She blurted out then how her mother had been.
Frank listened sympathetically, at times shaking his head sadly as if shocked her mother could be so hard. ‘I’m sorry, Fifi,’ he sighed as she finished. ‘She’s being daft about Dan, but it isn’t easy to accept your little girl is grown-up enough to marry, and even harder when you think she’s made the wrong choice. I expect she wanted you to marry someone just like your dad.’
‘Dan isn’t really that different,’ Fifi said sadly. ‘He’s honest, hard-working, loves kids and has a kind heart. He just didn’t have the kind of education and upbringing that meant he could go to university.’
‘Maybe you should write to her and tell her that,’ Frank said, getting up from his weeding and coming closer to her. ‘Don’t let this come between you, Fifi, you’ll need your family when the baby comes.’
Fifi went to visit Dan that afternoon. She was feeling utterly miserable, but she had a bath, washed her hair, made up her face and put on her prettiest dress because she didn’t want him to sense anything was wrong. When she got to the hospital she told him she’d come back from Bristol that morning because she wanted to be with him.
‘You must be mad,’ he said, but looked pleased anyway. ‘I know I’d sooner be out of London in this heat. Are you sure you didn’t have a fight with them about me?’
‘No,’ she lied, and smiled to reassure him. ‘I just felt strange away from you, and Patty wasn’t there to keep me company. I didn’t like the thought of you all alone without a visitor.’
He looked at her doubtfully, perhaps wondering why she wasn’t full of what had been said at home, but he didn’t attempt to cross-examine her.
‘They might let me out on Monday,’ he said. ‘But I won’t be able to work for a week or two. Maybe next weekend, after my stitches have been taken out, we could go to Brighton or somewhere by the sea?’
Fifi didn’t say they couldn’t afford to go anywhere while he wasn’t being paid. Instead, she just said they’d wait and see how he was feeling.
Dan appeared to be back to his usual self, making jokes about other men in the ward and telling Fifi things he’d found out about some of the nurses. If he was worried about who had hurt him, he didn’t show it. When Fifi had to leave at the end of visiting he told her he loved her and that he was glad she was back in London.
Fifi hadn’t been home for more than five minutes when the police called. Frank opened the door to them downstairs and they came on up to her flat.
‘Sorry to disturb you, Mrs Reynolds,’ the older one said. ‘But we wanted to ask you a few questions about Thursday night. We understand you were here all evening?’
Fifi confirmed that she was, and the policeman asked her to tell him what she’d seen and heard that evening.
While Fifi was explaining about the fight over the road, the younger man was looking out of her living-room window as if to ascertain how well she could see the Muckles’ house.
‘What makes you think the man fighting with Mrs Muckle was her husband?’ the older man asked.
‘I just assumed it was,’ Fifi said. ‘I could only see his silhouette in the window and he was the same height and size as Alfie.’
‘His nephew is a similar height and size. Could it have been him?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose so, but I saw him coming home later with Dora. Do you think it was Alfie who attacked Dan?’ she asked.
The older policeman smiled. ‘Let’s just say we are still making enquiries.’
Fifi blurted out that she found it odd Molly had no visible injuries.
‘That didn’t escape us either,’ the policeman said with a knowing look.
Fifi went back to the hospital in the evening to see Dan again. It was very hot and sticky outside, but hotter still in the ward, and Dan looked sweaty and uncomfortable.
‘Shall I wet a flannel and at least cool your face