A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [79]
As Fifi continued to gaze out of the window, she remembered how awful she thought this street was when they first came here, and how that feeling came back after she came out of hospital. It looked okay again now. It would be nice of course if there were a few trees, or the coal yard closed down, but if she and Dan left, and he’d been saying they should when her arm was better, she was going to miss the friends she’d made here.
Granted, the Muckles were still over the road, ‘ze worm in ze apple’, as Yvette humorously described them, but they had been quieter lately. They still had their regular Friday night card parties, but last night Fifi hadn’t heard anything much because she and Dan had gone to bed early.
She wondered if maybe Alfie had got nervous when the police questioned him about Dan’s attack. Or could it be that they’d finally grown tired of everyone loathing them?
If only the police could find out who attacked Dan! She didn’t like things left in the air. But there were no fingerprints on the iron bar he was hit with. No one living in the houses and flats along the alley where it happened had seen anyone behaving suspiciously. The police hadn’t officially closed the case as far as she knew, but it didn’t look as if they were doing anything else about it.
Dan had always been convinced that he was merely mistaken for someone else. As he pointed out, the time he left work varied from day to day.
Being realistic, Fifi doubted Alfie was really capable of planning such an elaborate revenge anyway. She was even inclined to believe she’d imagined him standing on the garden wall that night of the storm too. She was distraught, after all. Would anyone, even a weirdo like Alfie, attempt prowling around on garden walls in such weather?
‘Fifi! Are you up and about?’
At the sound of Frank calling her, Fifi got up from her chair and went out on to the landing. Frank was standing down on the stairs, her pint of milk in his hands.
‘You look smart,’ Fifi said. He was wearing a navy blue suit and a white shirt and tie. ‘Where are you off to?’
‘To visit June’s grave, then on to see my sister,’ he said, coming further up the stairs and putting the milk bottle down. ‘I’ll be gone all day and I wondered if you’d like to sit out in my garden in the sun.’
‘I’d love to,’ she said, smiling down at him. ‘You are sweet, Frank!’
Frank had made this offer before, saying he didn’t like the thought of her and Dan being cooped up in the flat. But they’d never taken him up on it as while Dan was home they could go to the park together. Fifi wasn’t that keen on going alone to the park, and besides, it wasn’t very comfortable sitting on the grass reading. Frank had a nice padded chair, and in the privacy of his garden she could wear shorts or even a swimsuit.
‘Well, you just go on out there when you’re ready,’ he said, turning to go back downstairs. ‘It’s going to be a scorcher today. Make yourself drinks in the kitchen, you don’t want to be running up and down the stairs. But when you come back in, remember to lock the kitchen door.’
‘I’ll do some weeding for you,’ she said. ‘That’s one thing I can do with my left hand.’
‘Pull up any flowers and I’ll clip you round the ear when I get home,’ he laughed.
Fifi washed herself and put on a pair of white shorts and a sun top, then made herself a boiled egg and some toast. It was infuriating how long it took to do the simplest tasks one-handed. Doing up her bra had been impossible at first, as was spreading butter on toast, and striking matches to light the gas. Dan had got round this by buying a battery-operated gadget, and as time went on she found ways round the other problem areas, especially when her broken wrist became stronger and she found she could use the fingers enough to support things.
She had just got her breakfast on to the table when she heard Alfie Muckle’s voice out in the road. It was only nine