A Lesser Evil Part 11

'It's okay, Mrs Reynolds,' the policeman said, coming up a few stairs to meet her. 'I just called to tell you that your husband was taken to St James's Hospital last night. Someone attacked him.'

'Who attacked him? Is he badly hurt?' Fifi asked, all at once feeling sick with fright.

There wasn't much more the policeman could tell her as he hadn't seen Dan himself, he was only pa.s.sing on the message the local police had been given.

'But his injuries can't be very serious or the hospital would've asked us to call on you last night to take you to your husband,' he said soothingly. 'So don't get all worked up, Mrs Reynolds, I expect they only kept him in overnight for observation.'

He went on to tell her where the hospital was in Tooting, and suggested she phoned before going there to check if they wanted her to bring anything with her, like clean clothes or pyjamas. Then, after apologizing for giving her such a shock, he said he had to go back on his beat.

Fifi burst into tears after he'd gone and Frank took her into his kitchen to give her a cup of tea.

Both Fifi and Dan had come to like Frank a great deal. He always greeted them warmly when they came home, he'd give Fifi little bunches of flowers from his garden, and he took her milk in every day and put it in her fridge so it wouldn't turn sour. He was obviously lonely with his only daughter and her family in Australia, but he never made a nuisance of himself. He just took a friendly and kindly interest in them, and if they asked him up for a cup of tea, or bought him a drink at the pub, he was always delighted to accept, but never outstayed his welcome.

'Why would anyone attack Dan?' Fifi sobbed out. 'Every-one likes him. He isn't a troublemaker.'

Frank put his arms around her and comforted her. 'It must have been robbery, I suppose. But a bloke like Dan wouldn't have been my choice to rob, he's young, fit and strong.I'd have gone for an easier target.'

'They wouldn't have found anything on him worth stealing,' Fifi said tearfully. 'He never has any money left by Thursday, he doesn't even wear a watch.'

Frank was still in his dressing-gown too, so Fifi drank her tea, then said she was going to get dressed so she could go and phone the hospital.

'Want me to come with you?' Frank asked. 'You look a bit shaky to me.'

'I'll be fine once I know he's all right,' she said. 'But thank you for being so kind.'

Frank patted her on the shoulder. 'Come and tell me how he is when you get back. I could make you a bit of breakfast.'

'The ward sister said he's quite comfortable,' Fifi told Frank when she got back from the phone. 'He got a blow to the back of his head and another in the ribs. The police are going to talk to him this morning to find out what happened.'

'You'll take the day off then?' Frank asked. 'Would you like me to ring your office at nine and explain for you?'

His fatherly manner was touching. He'd dressed and shaved while she was making the phone call, and he smelled of soap and toothpaste. He'd already laid the table for breakfast for them both in his tiny kitchen, and with the back door open and a huge pot of colourful petunias right outside it, it felt very homely and comforting.

'I can do that on the way to the hospital,' Fifi said. 'They only allow visiting between two and three and five and six, but maybe if I go there with his pyjamas they'll let me see him straight away.'

'So they're keeping him in then?'

Fifi nodded. 'Yes, the sister said they have to monitor him for brain damage as he was knocked unconscious. But he can't be that badly hurt. She said Dan made a joke about how they'll have to check he's got a brain first.'

Frank smiled. 'I can just hear him saying that. He's the kind that finds summat funny in everything. You know he's even charmed Miss Diamond, don't you? She knocked before she went to work because she'd heard the policeman earlier. Upset she was! Said if there was anything she could do, you'd only got to ask.'

'That was very kind of her,' Fifi said. She was feeling a bit better now that she'd spoken to the hospital, and it was so nice to know her neighbours cared. 'I spoke to her last night when all that noise was going on over the road. Did you hear it?'

Frank nodded grimly. 'If the whole street hadn't heard them at it hammer and tongs I might have thought Alfie was behind this attack on your Dan. But as he was over there giving Molly a pasting it can't have been him.'

Fifi remembered Yvette's warning and frowned in consternation. 'Why would you think he might be responsible?'

'Alfie ain't one to let anyone get the better of him,' Frank said with a shrug. 'Your Dan marked his card when he hurt Angela. That's enough reason for Alfie to get some revenge, and walloping someone over the head in the dark is just his style.'

At the hospital the ward sister did soften and let Fifi in for ten minutes, just so she'd be rea.s.sured Dan was all right. But Fifi wasn't rea.s.sured, not when she saw Dan with his head bandaged and his face unnaturally pale. He grinned as she came up the ward, but it was forced, so she knew he was in pain.

'I'm as sound as a pound,' he insisted. 'They're only keeping me here as a precaution, not cos I need to stay in bed. I've a good mind to get up and come home with you.'

'You'll do nothing of the sort,' Fifi said sharply, sniffing back her tears. 'They don't put bandages that big on some-one for no reason.'

She asked him how it happened, and he explained that he couldn't remember anything after Owen called out to him. 'Whoever did it must have been in the alley already,' he said. 'There's gates into backyards where he could hide.'

'But why?' Fifi asked. 'Are you sure you haven't got on the wrong side of someone?'

Dan sighed. 'That's what the police asked me when they came a while back. They wanted to know if I owed anyone money, or if someone had a grudge against me. They even asked if I'd been playing around with another woman! I told them to have a look at you, then they'd know I wouldn't be messing with anyone else.'

Fifi liked that. Sometimes Dan could be so charming. 'Frank thought it sounded like Alfie Muckle's work,' she said. 'But it couldn't have been him, he and Molly were in their house fighting, everyone heard them.'

'The Dale Street Obsession,' Dan exclaimed, rolling his eyes. 'Everything that happens to anyone is always down to Alfie Muckle. If Martians landed in London that would be his fault too.'

'They've had years of bitter experience with him,' Fifi said indignantly. 'You should have heard the row last night! He's a monster.'

'I agree he's a wife and child beater, a slob and a lazy thieving b.a.s.t.a.r.d, but that still doesn't make him responsible for every single crime committed in the neighbourhood.'

'Maybe not, but Frank, Stan, Yvette and even Miss Diamond all say '

'He's the son of Satan, I suppose.' Dan cut in before she could finish. 'You shouldn't listen to them, Fifi. They're all losers too.'

'They aren't,' Fifi said incredulously. 'What a horrible thing to say! I thought you saw them all as friends?'

Dan shrugged. 'I do, but it doesn't blind me to their faults. If they had anything about them at all they would've moved away years ago. But they stay, and moan about the Muckles. And you know why? Because that family make them feel better about themselves.'

'Dan! That's a wicked thing to say. Maybe they can't afford to move, perhaps they've tried and can't find anywhere. I don't believe for one moment that they feel better about themselves just because they have ghastly neighbours.'

Dan gave her one of his looks that said he thought she was naive. 'I know how it is for them, sweetheart, because I'm guilty of it myself. Your parents look down on the way I speak, the way I look, and my job, and let's face it, I've justified their belief I'd bring you down to my level by taking you to live in Dale Street. But I feel at home there. I can look across to the Muckles and see the blankets across their windows and feel dead smug because we've got nice curtains. No one looks down on me there for working on a building site. I'm even the envy of every other man in the street because I've got a gorgeous wife.'

'I don't see what you're getting at,' Fifi said peevishly. She hated it when he put himself down. 'That bang on the head must have done you more damage than I thought.'

'You're the one who's always studying the neighbours,' he said. 'I would've thought you'd seen it by now.'

Fifi decided that it was anxiety and pain that were making him look at things with such jaundiced eyes. In a day or two he'd probably regain his normal optimism, so there was no point in her arguing with him. 'So when did they say you could come home?' she asked.

'Not for a couple of days at least,' he said. 'Look, why don't you make the most of having today off, and go home to your parents for the weekend?'

'Home to them!' Fifi exclaimed, thinking the b.u.mp on the head must be worse than he thought. 'They haven't even answered my letter about the baby. They won't want to see me!'

Dan took her hand in his and caressed it, his dark eyes boring into hers. 'You don't know that! I was thinking about it before you arrived. Maybe they've been waiting for you to make the first move? I don't like the thought of you alone all weekend in the flat, and it will be a darned sight easier for you to make it up with them without me around.'

'Mum will just be nasty,' Fifi said stubbornly. 'I know she will.'

'You don't know that for sure,' Dan said firmly. 'Ring them and see what they say. If they blank you off you've lost nothing. At least you've been big enough to give it a try.'

As Fifi had always considered she was the wronged party, she believed that it should be her parents who should offer the olive branch. But she liked the idea of being magnanimous her father at least would see it as a sign she'd grown up. And if she made it clear she was coming home alone, her mother wouldn't be so edgy. Once there, with Patty getting all excited about the baby, it would be hard for her mother to stay on her high horse.

'But even if Mum was agreeable, how could I go and leave you in here?'

'Why not? Normal visiting hours are only an hour, twice a day, it would be daft staying in London just for that.'

'But you'd hate not having a visitor,' Fifi argued.

'It's the weekend, some of the blokes from work might come,' he said with a shrug. 'And even if they don't, I won't mind. I can chat to the nurses or the other patients. Or just catch up on some sleep.'

Dan never said anything he didn't mean, so Fifi knew he really would be happy enough here alone. Her mother had always claimed that Fifi was as stubborn as a mule, so it would take the wind out of her sails just getting a phone call. She really did want to make the peace now with a baby coming, and perhaps this was the golden opportunity to call a truce.

Dan was right, she didn't relish the weekend stuck alone in the flat, especially when it was so hot. She could see the garden at home in her mind's eye, the lush gra.s.s, the trees and flowers, and she could imagine herself lying on a blanket reading a magazine, with her mother bringing her out a gla.s.s of her homemade lemonade. It would be so nice to sleep in her old room, to see her brothers and sister, maybe catch up with a few old friends on Sat.u.r.day night.

'Ring her,' Dan said firmly, perhaps sensing she was wavering. 'You're having their grandchild, for heaven's sake! You'll want them in the picture when he or she is born. Then there's Patty and your brothers, they're going to be aunty and uncles, and they'll be thrilled to see you. I don't want you to be home alone all weekend either, so please, do it for me!'

Fifi felt a surge of love for Dan. He was hurt, yet he wasn't thinking of himself, only her. If their positions were reversed she knew she wouldn't be that n.o.ble or generous. She really did have to go along with his idea.

'Okay, I'll phone, but I'll only go if she's nice. I'm not going all that way just for more rows.'

He took her hand and squeezed it. 'Meet her halfway,' he said. 'But just don't get to like it at home so much you decide to stay.'

'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 pa.s.sed 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 Hela.s.s was quick to point out that Alfie had been too busy thras.h.i.+ng 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 s.e.x-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 Hela.s.s 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 of their children? We make it seem like Alfie and Molly did it.'

'Brilliant idea.' Frank laughed. 'That should sort out the problem.'

'Now, now,' Rosa the aging barmaid piped up from behind the bar. 'You can't plot murder in here!'

'We don't mean it, Rosa,' Stan said quickly, regretting his bad joke.

'That's a shame,' she laughed. 'I might've been tempted to help you.'

Fifi sat at the kitchen table eating the sandwich her mother had given her, but she was tense, knowing by the way Clara was rattling dishes in the sink that she was boiling up for something.

Everything had looked so hopeful at first. When Fifi telephoned that morning and asked if she could come on her own for the weekend, Clara hadn't hesitated in agreeing, in fact she'd sounded delighted. Fifi purposefully didn't mention what had happened to Dan, it was too hard to explain on the phone, but perhaps that was her first mistake, as maybe her mother got the idea she was walking out on him.

When Fifi arrived, she took it as a good omen that her mother was wearing the pale blue linen dress Fifi had always said she looked so pretty in. While she didn't hug her daughter, Clara did say what a lovely surprise the phone call was, and that she'd made up the bed for her.

It was a bit disappointing to find that Patty had gone to a friend's for the weekend. Her brothers were at cricket practice and her father had gone to see an old friend and wouldn't be back till much later. But the house was as sun-filled and peaceful as she remembered, and Fifi felt that the time alone with her mother would be good for them both.

Over a cup of tea Fifi explained about Dan being in hospital and why. When there was no real reaction, good or bad, she moved on to tell her mother about her job and the girls she'd made friends with at work.

It was only when she said that she and Dan had been hoping to buy a little house before the baby arrived, but she supposed Dan might not be able to go back to work for a while, that her mother got up from the table to make the sandwich. She shot a few terse questions over her shoulder at Fifi had she seen a doctor yet? Where would she go for antenatal care? but it wasn't until she gave her the sandwich and moved over to the sink, making far more noise than was normal, that Fifi realized trouble was brewing.

'So why was he beaten up?' Clara asked suddenly, her voice tight with disapproval.

'I told you already, we don't know,' Fifi said evenly. 'He's well liked, he wasn't robbed of anything, it's a mystery.'

Clara sniffed and turned back to the sink.