For the Love of Liverpool Read online

  ‘White,’ is my answer once my tongue unties itself.

  ‘White,’ Alex repeats as if the shop owner hasn’t heard me. ‘One for Kate, and a match for me. Platinum.’

  We acquire matching wedding rings, and Alex says he will bring them back for engraving at some later date. He also insists on buying me an engagement ring to convince everyone still further. A diamond on a plain platinum band works perfectly.

  I need something like sugar, or perhaps a gin and tonic. I’ll probably wake up shortly from this very vivid dream.

  The man boxes and wraps the jewellery, and takes Alex’s Amex. I go outside and lean against the window, arms folded across my chest. I’m sulking. Why am I sulking? I am displeased because he just told me what was going to happen. There was no discussion, no consultation, no chance for me to agree or disagree. Jim was like that. But no, no, Alex is nothing like Jim.

  He joins me and asks me what my problem is. So I tell him, holding nothing back. Nobody organizes me. I’ve waded through enough dung already, and I absolutely refuse to be managed without prior consultation. He says he told me what was happening, and I accuse him of telling the Bees first. Then he apologizes and begs me to stop shouting in the street. So I stop. He’s doing it to protect me, the best way he knows. It’s hard to stay mad at him, anyway, because something of the boy still remains in him, probably because he suffered that emotional arrest at a very young age. I shudder as I remember him telling me about swimming through blood. What did he see? Will his nightmares ever end?

  ‘So our marriage is just pretend?’ I ask.

  ‘For now, yes. We need to sift through our options for the future, sort out Amelia and your parents, decide where everyone will live, and how we might manage to escape your past.’ He pauses. ‘And mine.’

  In tea rooms at ground level, we are presented with high tea as ordered by Mr Price. We have an ornate silver teapot with a matching, lidded jug containing hot water to weaken our brew should we so wish, sugar and milk in smaller silver pots, and a three-tier cake stand with enough confectionery on its levels to drive a whole classroom full of children crazy.

  Sandwiches are without crusts and placed beautifully on oblong platters in white ceramic. Between these regimented lines of triangular delights sit tiny fronds of parsley and little radishes carved into flowers. I wonder what all this is about, but the man I love is busy peeling back top layers of bread in order to assess the contents. Again, I see the child in him.

  ‘Be Mother,’ he suggests, wiping his hands on a napkin before digging them into pockets. I pour the tea, and I suddenly know what’s happening, though I’m not going to spoil things for him. A few expletives later, he appears to have found what he has sought. ‘Three bloody boxes, and it has to be the last one,’ he grumbles quietly.

  Despite the fact that the place is nearly full, he stands and moves to the side before kneeling next to me. ‘Kate whatever your name is today, will you marry me in the not too distant future? Like next year?’

  I have never cried in public since childhood, but I’m weepy now. People are standing and applauding, while our waitress takes photographs with Alex’s phone. And, as the tears wash my face, all I can think is that he loves me. He wants to keep me safe, and soon enough we will be properly married.

  He tells me not to cry.

  He stands and returns to his seat after taking a bow to his audience. Conversation hums once more, and he asks me to give him my thoughts, so I tell him I want more children. And he smiles as he relates his tale of Libby-on-the-beach. This man, this beautiful boy in the body of an adult, this chief executive of a thriving business, will make an excellent father and stepfather. It’s time to go home.

  They returned to Strawberry Mead at about six o’clock and walked straight into trouble. Bobby Ray Carson was striding about in Mrs Bee’s kitchen, while two policemen, their warrant cards on display, sat drinking tea at a small breakfast table. ‘What’s going on?’ Alex asked.

  Bobby Ray answered. ‘I’ve closed Cheers, and colleagues of these gentlemen are with your two girlfriends at Chillex and Checkmate.’

  Alex’s mouth twitched. ‘Not in front of my wife, Bob.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Bobby Ray gave them a look of surprise but then grinned. ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘Girlfriends?’ Kate raised her left hand to display wedding and engagement rings.

  ‘Tell you later,’ Alex promised before returning to the business in hand. ‘Is it drugs?’ he asked.

  The men at the table nodded. ‘Nothing obvious at the gay club, and Charm seems clear. Steroids among other nasties at Chillex, all kinds of stuff at Cheers. London boys, we believe.’

  Kate clutched at Alex’s hand. ‘Do you have any names?’ she asked.

  ‘No, but they were noticed outside Chillex and inside Cheers. Mr Carson had his usual eagle eye on the club, and when he saw business taking place he phoned us. We know you keep a tight and tidy fleet of ships, so we moved fast, but not fast enough. People who bought the drugs are enjoying the happy ambience at various stations, and they all said the men had London accents.’

  Alex spoke to Bobby Ray. ‘You got the buyers’ names?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Stick them on the banned list. I want all five clubs taken apart by the police if they have time. Yes, all five. We shall reopen when we’re judged clean.’

  The officers stood up. ‘If everybody cooperated like you, Mr Price, the world would be a cleaner and safer place.’

  Alex shook their hands. ‘I’ve heard of too many deaths from drugs, gentlemen. As long as I have a say in such matters, the clubs will be clean. Mr Carson here agrees with me – he owns half of Cheers.’

  Bobby Ray nodded his agreement. ‘So we whiten all windows and show a closed for refurb sign, yes?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll send painters in. Good luck to you, gentlemen, and bad luck to dealers.’ The police left, and Bobby Ray followed within minutes.

  To distract her man, Kate placed herself in front of him. ‘Girlfriends? Tell me,’ she insisted.

  He took a handkerchief from his pocket and waved the white flag. ‘Well, there’s Amber Simpson, manager of Chillex. If she stood sideways behind a lamp post, you wouldn’t see much of her. She needs a few good meals, so perhaps she was thinking of eating me.’

  ‘Pretty?’

  He shrugged. ‘Peroxide blonde, muscular and ambitious. Not my type at all. She probably sees me as a man with just about enough money to get her to where she thinks she wants to be.’

  ‘And number two?’

  ‘Marty – really Martina Nelson. She manages the singles club, and she does it very well. Checkmate has its own specific problems, because singletons who are not singletons are often pursued by spouses. There are some spectacular fights, so Marty depends heavily on security, though I’ve heard some customers complaining that Marty’s armlocks are extremely painful.’

  ‘Is she pretty?’

  ‘Compared to whom?’

  ‘Compared to me, of course.’

  He touched her face. ‘You aren’t merely pretty – you’re perfectly beautiful.’

  ‘Good answer. In fact, the only acceptable one.’

  His thumb travelled gently across her cheekbone. ‘Just give me time, Kate. I must go out now. Fortunately, my clubs are fairly close to each other behind Hope Street, but I may be gone for a few hours.’

  ‘See you later.’

  ‘That you will. Bye for now.’ And he left.

  Five

  Kate woke suddenly in the dark, wondering where on earth she was. After blinking stupidly for a moment or two, she remembered: she was pretend-married and properly engaged to a beautiful, difficult and stubborn man. And she loved him.

  Yes, she was at Alex’s house. She pulled at the duvet, realizing as she did so that someone was sitting at the bottom of her bed. ‘Alex?’ she asked, turning to switch on a lamp, blinking against its glow.

  ‘Were you expecting someone else?’

  �
��There’s a sizeable list, but you’re at the top, I promise.’

  He shifted to the side of the divan, so that he could hold her hand. ‘No joking. First, your dogs are settled with mine. But we have serious business, so I hope you’re fully awake. There are drug hits all over Liverpool, stuff ranging from so-called legal highs all the way to some supposedly Chinese stuff that is unevenly cut, so when it’s too pure it might kill.’

  ‘God.’

  ‘Not God – it’s more likely to be the work of the lower, hotter section of the afterlife. But . . .’ He paused for several seconds. ‘I know London’s a big city, but the two guys selling the drugs just happen to have East End accents. Might those voices possibly belong to what you described as gang members lower down the food chain, the men with no names? It may sound far-fetched, but what do you think?’

  ‘Jim’s pond life?’

  ‘Your dear departed’s runners, yes. They’d do the work too menial for him and his sidekicks. I suppose they kept watch when a big job went on, protected people who wouldn’t have needed protection had it not been for Jim – and yes, there would be drugs. But . . . Kate, stay strong.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘The house you were renovating on Merrilocks Road has been ransacked. Yes, hang on to my hand. I went up there to check when I left the clubs, just in case. Couldn’t go inside, because it’s a crime scene – fingerprints and so forth.’

  Kate let go of his hand and sat bolt upright. ‘If they are Jim’s men, they’ll leave no evidence. He’ll have trained them to be meticulous. But they were lucky, because my dogs would have ripped their throats out.’ She drew up her knees and rested her chin on the raised duvet. ‘Your fingerprints will be in there.’

  He lifted his hands, displaying grey fingertips. ‘See? I’m being eliminated. It’s a dirty business.’

  ‘Oh, Alex, fingerprinted because of me. What have I pulled you into? You have your business to run, your life to live, and I come along—’

  ‘You will be my business; you will be my life. When I’m ready and you’re ready – when we know the time is right and Amelia can come home, there’ll be big changes. We can live anywhere in the world—’

  ‘Eric Mansell,’ she cried. ‘The one in Walton Jail, Jim’s right-hand man. What if he knows I’m here? He might have got the lower orders to come up from London to find me. Drugs were always the basis of the business, their fuel, their bread-and-butter money. I used to thank God that I had my own salary and the house my parents bought for me, because I didn’t want anything to do with heroin, cocaine or whatever . . .’ Her voice died of exhaustion, while the grip on his hand was renewed.

  ‘You may be on the right track, but it could be the other way round, Kate. The London guys might have bought your address from the same source as Dr Girling. The man in Walton may have nothing to do with what’s happening. But Merrilocks Road was targeted – that was personal. What do they want from you?’

  She bit her lip. ‘I killed their boss and put three criminals in jail.’

  ‘And they want to kill you?’

  ‘Not necessarily. They’ll want to know where the rest of the stuff is from the Hatton Garden job, and they probably think I can tell them. And maybe I could, though I only just thought of it myself. Jim’s dad died a couple of weeks before Jim’s . . . death. If the police dug up the grave site . . . It would be typical of Jim – he hated his dad, who was a decent man. Yes, his father is probably buried under a dozen safety deposit boxes. I must speak to Inspector Allen.’

  ‘Go to sleep now, princess.’

  Unexpectedly, she laughed. ‘I’m no princess.’ Again, she became serious. ‘It’s amazing how one forgets things after a trauma – and how precisely they can come back to you in certain circumstances. Of course, I carry a clear picture of Jim’s face just before I shot him, but today, after Giles had gone, I suddenly remembered how very dirty it was.

  ‘Jim was meticulous when it came to personal hygiene. Two showers a day, two shirts, two of everything. Yet he was hitting the vodka that night, and while he was pouring it I noticed rims of black stuff under his fingernails too. He was filthy, Alex. He looked like he’d done a shift in a coal mine. Gentleman Jim didn’t do filthy. He was OK with theft, murder, wife-beating . . . he was fine with protection rackets, drugs and fraud. But untidiness and dirt? Never, not even when gardening.

  ‘I don’t want to make Inspector Allen follow a red herring, but this particular fish is worth bait on a line. I do realize that the dirt might well have come from the tunnel they made in order to gain access to the safety deposit boxes, but I also believe Jim was capable of dishonouring his father in the worst way. He hadn’t even bothered to attend the funeral. Mr Latimer was a train driver, an honest working man with . . .’ she paused through several beats of time, ‘with an allotment where he grew prize-winning flowers and vegetables. He specialized in chrysanthemums. Dull but serviceable blooms, didn’t someone say?’

  She sighed. ‘It won’t be the allotment, because there’s always a lengthy queue for those, and Mr Latimer ceased to be a tenant when he died. So it’s the grave – it has to be.’

  ‘It could be the tunnel,’ Alex reminded her.

  ‘I’m almost sure it was black soil, so the grave’s worth checking.’ She shuddered. ‘Imagine being among the dead in almost total darkness, digging and . . . ugh.’ She shivered again. ‘But I have this feeling, and the inspector said I must tell him every lead I can think of, even if it seems silly. Is it silly?’

  ‘No. Go to sleep. Perhaps I should have left all this until daylight, though I knew you might tell me off for not waking you.’

  Kate scarcely heard him. ‘Jim knew where the grave was, because he took flowers for his mother several times a year; he adored his old girl, as he called her. Yes, it makes sense. The grave was recently disturbed for his father’s burial, so no one would notice any change.’ At last, she gave her attention to Alex. ‘If you’re not happy to sleep with me, go away.’

  ‘I’d be more than happy, but remember, I have never been in this situation before. Sex was just exercise with no real affection in the mix. With you, it would be different – and my hands are covered in fingerprint stuff. Mrs Bee bought lovely new bedding recently, and she’d kill us if we messed it up. Believe me, Kate, you don’t want to upset my housekeeper.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ was her answer.

  Alex laughed.

  ‘And we don’t need sex; we need sleep,’ was her next contribution.

  ‘And dirty Mrs Bee’s covers? Have you seen her in high dudgeon? She makes the incredible hulk look like a children’s entertainer.’

  ‘She’s tiny, Alex.’

  He shook his head. ‘In her mind, she’s Tyrannosaurus regina crossed with a medieval witch. Even Mr Bee keeps his head down when she’s on one.’

  Kate tossed back the duvet; she was wearing very little. ‘Come on, we’ll just sleep. On my life, I promise not to interfere with your person, and your moral virginity will remain intact.’

  ‘You think I’m a dumbo, don’t you?’

  ‘I would never be engaged to a dumbo. I’ve nothing against elephants – in fact, I contribute to the protection of African wildlife. Take your outer clothes off and get in this bed. The child in you still needs a mum. Sleep with me, and I’ll protect you from your nightmares.’

  ‘Is that an order, ma’am?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He gave up the fight, undressed, and joined her.

  Kate woke wrapped in his arms with warm brown eyes looking at her.

  ‘Any dreams?’ he asked.

  ‘Can’t remember. You?’

  ‘Ditto. This is the first time I’ve spent most of a night with a woman.’

  ‘And we were very, very good.’ She giggled. ‘Sleep without sex. Quite an achievement in my book.’

  They stayed together for a few minutes before he jumped out of bed wearing only a big smile and boxer shorts.

  Kate drank in her first r
eal sight of him, carefully noting his assets. ‘Pecs good. Six-pack not horribly pronounced. Abs great. Love handles, none. Handsome, tick.’

  He felt the heat in his face; yes, she embarrassed him, but Alex wanted children with backbone and brain, and this woman had both.

  ‘Payback time,’ he announced. ‘Beautiful, definitely. Natural hair, soft and shiny. Good body . . .’ He made a ticking motion over his palm.

  ‘Except for the scars.’ Her voice was low. ‘I have a metal plate in my right leg, so doctors have given me a chance of arthritis as I age.’

  Alex swallowed a lump of sadness that had settled in his throat. ‘I wish I’d killed him with my own hands. But now you are definitely, absolutely mine. Tell me – is Amelia like you? Her personality, I mean.’

  ‘Yes, she’s a handful. That’s why he almost kicked the life out of her, I suppose. She’s a very girly girl – beads, sequins, separate dressing-up wardrobe full of princessy stuff. She took pearls out of his stash, you know, and her intention would have been to keep them.’

  ‘So he half killed a child?’

  She nodded. ‘His own child.’

  Again, he swallowed. ‘She sounds like the little girl I met on the beach yesterday. An answer for everything, she had. Her two friends were trying to drown themselves in the river, while little madam was bribing me with paper flags for sandcastles, and banana yogurt for pudding.’

  ‘Did they drown?’

  ‘No. Princess Libby’s mother saved them while I sat and learnt how clever small female children can be. I imagine your Amelia as being in the same bracket as Libby.’

  ‘She has French lessons with my parents twice a week. She’ll be able to argue back in two languages soon.’

  Alex jumped to his feet. ‘I’ll throw something on and exercise the dogs. There’s a new phone charging in your living room, so use that. Remember? You told the inspector you would change your SIM card. Get him up to scratch. Tell him you’re in my care, that we’re going to be married when everything’s sorted out, and that we’re truly engaged. He needs to know what happened here last night.’ He blew her a kiss and left. After a few seconds, his head returned. ‘The pretend marriage – he needs to know that.’