Helen Gunner was becoming a regular visitor at the Griffithses, settling in and becoming an approved member of the family circle. Gradually, Frank accepted that she was going to remain so. Helen and Ernie were casual towards each other when they were with the family, there was none of the embarrassment Barry had caused by kissing Caroline, and making love to her with his eyes, in the time leading up to when they had decided to make their marriage real. No need to cough before entering a room where they were sitting. And for that Frank was grateful. He grudgingly admitted to his mother that, “She isn’t half bad.”
On the Sunday following the visit from the police, Helen invited Frank along when she and Ernie were going to tea with her parents.
“Mam and Dad would like to meet you,” she said, smiling as she lied. She had lost count of the hours spent persuading them to lower their defences and talk to a Griffiths. “I’ve told them about you, but it isn’t the same as meeting you themselves.”
He got out of it by insisting the goats and chickens needed cleaning out and set to with a vengeance when Hywel agreed with him.
“I think you’re afraid you and Ernie will lose touch with each other because of me,” she said, following him to where Ermintrude was bleating her delight as seeing Frank.
“He can do what he likes. It doesn’t worry me. I’ve got my own life. Just tell him to make sure he doesn’t bring stolen stuff to the house again, that’s all.”
“That was stupid, he knows that. But you and I know he is a bit thick,” she teased, “and I doubt if I can change that. I’ll have to think for him, like you’ve done over the years. Thank you for getting rid of it before the police came searching.”
“Needs a keeper he does.”
“And what about you, Frank? You’re planning something, aren’t you?”
“What d’you mean? I share my deals with Ernie and we both check to make sure it’s safe. I’m not stupid enough to bring dodgy stuff home.”
“Not planning something to get your own back on him?” She tilted her head and looked at him thoughtfully.
“That’s what Ernie says is it?”
“That’s what he thinks. Be careful, Frank. Because when I’ve persuaded Ernie to propose, he’ll want you to be his best man. You can’t do that if you’re in prison, can you?”
“You don’t have to worry.”
“But I do, Frank. About all of you. I know you do these little ‘deals’ as much for the devilment as profit, but if you step over the line of mild trickery into the world of the real villains, your life will never be the same again.”
“If you know what Ernie’s like, why bother with him?”
She tilted her head again in that fascinating way and laughed. “Even the Griffithses have to grow up some time, Frank.”
“Oh, I see, marry the bloke and then change him so his best friends won’t know him.”
“I confess I have something like that in mind. I’ll tell you in confidence, Frank, Ernie wants to marry me but I won’t agree until he gives up this stupid way of earning a living. I don’t intend to survive by grubbing along on the bottom in the sludge. I want to swim in the clean, fresh stream. No, your Ernie’ll have to get a job before I say yes.”
“You think he’ll ask you?”
“He’ll ask,” she said with a confident smile.
“Good luck,” he said doubtfully.
Rhiannon answered a knock at the door and saw a smiling Gwyn there with his father.
“Hello, Charlie. Don’t tell me. You’ve lost the pup again!”
“No, it’s about my bike,” Gwyn replied. “Basil Griffiths, in Trellis Street, he reckons he’s got one.”
“We wondered if you’ll come with us to look at it,” Charlie said.
She gathered a jacket and slipped on some tidier shoes and they set off with Gwyn chattering non-stop about where he was going when he had transport. Rhiannon shared a smile with Charlie and felt a wave of pleasurable excitement.
Basil was sitting behind a heavily loaded dinner plate and helping to coax Ronnie to eat a spoonful of mashed vegetables that he was spitting out as fast as his father was pushing it in. Basil was laughing as Ronnie wrinkled his little face in outrage.
“Doesn’t think much of your cooking, Eleri, love,” he said as the visitors sat down.
“So long as he’s had a little,” Eleri said, coming in from the kitchen with cups of tea.
Basil pushed his plate aside. “Keep this hot for a few minutes will you, love? I’ll show them the bike before I eat.”
“We can come back another time.” Charlie began to rise. But Basil shook his head.
“You can wait but I don’t think your Gwyn can, eh, son?”
The bicycle had been in a bit of a crash and the paint was badly scraped, the handlebars had been slightly buckled and straightened, but Charlie and Basil examined it minutely and decided that it was safe, and in need of cosmetic treatment only. Delving in a shed, Basil found several tins of paint and promised to help clean the vehicle so it would be ready for the weekend.
Then he pulled from the back of the shed his own bicycle and said, “Borrow this for a week or so, Charlie, so you can go with him and make sure he’s behaving sensible on the roads.”
“Can I take it home now?” an anxious Gwyn asked.
“Go on then, but don’t ride it ‘til we’ve greased it and checked the brakes, right?”
When Rhiannon and Charlie walked back with an excited Gwyn “scooting” on the pedal beside them she wondered at the kindness of people.
Charlie had announced that he was determined never to break the law again and he had been taken at his word and offered help.
“Aren’t people kind,” she said. “Basil only charged two pounds ten shillings for the bike and I don’t think he made a profit.”
“And Mr Windsor giving me, an ex-jailbird, a job in his garage. Yes, I’m lucky to live around here where people care.” He looked at her and smiled ruefully. “Most of it’s thanks to you,” he said. “Knowing you trust me and treat me like a friend has made a difference. People wouldn’t have accepted me so readily and I certainly wouldn’t have been offered the job in the garage if you hadn’t told Mr Windsor I was a reformed character. Thank you.”
“Oh, I didn’t think you knew I’d spoken to him?”
“He told me what you said and I promised him I’d never let you down, Rhiannon, and I meant it.”
He leaned towards her and placed a gentle kiss on her cheek before turning away, and hurrying across the road to help his son push his bike inside.
Afternoon tea with the Gunners was not one of Ernie’s most enjoyable experiences. As Frank was “unavoidably” detained, he went into the living room alone, to see Mr and Mrs Gunner standing side by side behind a lavishly set table, as if intending to ward him off with forks and knives. He had been warned in advance to insist on washing his hands before sitting down but failed her mother’s first test of a gentleman by going into the kitchen and not the bathroom to do so.
The conversation was nothing more than a series of questions which, Ernie surmised, were more tests. From the look on Gloria’s face, he failed.
Walking along the road afterwards, with an amused Helen escorting him as far as the corner, watched by her mother from the gate, he said,
“I’m getting very fond of you, Helen Gunner, and I want you to be a part of my future plans, but only if we can exclude your Mam from the whole thing. How d’you fancy Australia? Or the Arctic? Or the middle of the Sahara?”
Defying her mother, who still watched from the gate, Helen kissed him and started to walk back home. “Not unless you promise to marry me first, Ernie Griffiths,” she teased.
When Caroline had first moved back to her parents’ house, Barry called every day to play with Joseph, and sometimes to take Caroline to work. Whenever possible, he had tried to talk to her about moving back to the flat. But although Joseph greeted him with delight, Caroline firmly avoided being alone with him. She only allowed him to take her to work when her mother or one of the others needed a lift as well. It had reached the stage when he dreaded meeting her. Although he practised speeches when they were apart, when he saw her he no longer knew what to say.
He wasn’t deliberately avoiding her, he told himself, although it would have been easy to do so as she worked every weekday in the wool shop. Calling during the day to see Joseph, who was happy in the care of Janet and Hywel, he only had to avoid Wednesday afternoons to be sure of missing her. Unless she took a day off for some reason.
Thinking of this possibility, he tensed himself every time he went to the cottage, afraid that he would open the door and see her there. Yet every time he felt a sinking disappointment when she did not appear. He felt so ashamed at his failure and at the same time disappointed in her for letting him down and making him look such a fool.
He only had to imagine pleading with her to come home, and then would come the second part of his imaginings and he was watching the sadness cloud her lovely dark eyes as he stepped towards her. Walking away was misery but to stay would be impossible.
It wouldn’t work. It couldn’t work. Why had they ever thought it would? Stepping into dead men’s shoes was impossible, specially when the dead man was a brother, loved by them both.
Yet, unpleasant though it might be, he needed to talk to her. There was the money for one thing. They had decided to use her wages for the week to week expenses and allow his earnings to be ploughed back into the business. But business was slack, although there was a spate of weddings booked for June. He didn’t have enough money to pay the bills and find food.
He walked across the fields one evening and resentment simmered. He was building a business for her and for Joseph, wasn’t he? So why couldn’t she be patient and wait until it was up and running? Time he spent away from the house was one of the things she had hated, but it was only until the business grew. Then he could pick and choose his appointments and find more time for her. Things would be all right if only she would show more patience.
His shoulders drooped. It would never be all right. He was lying to himself and what was more pathetic than that? She didn’t want him. His absences, the long hours he worked, she hadn’t missed him, or wished he was there, they had been no more than an excuse on which to hang her regrets.
Almost within sight of the cottage, he stopped at the edge of a field and leaned against a stile. Life seemed so empty. If it wasn’t for Joseph he might be tempted to emigrate and start somewhere new. Surely as a photographer he could find work wherever he lived?
“Watcha, Barry,” a voice called and he turned to see Basil walking along the hedgerow towards him. “On your way to see our Caroline are you?”
“I suppose so, although I doubt if she wants to see me,” he replied morosely.
“Why? Aren’t you going to make arrangements about her coming back home? She must have had enough of our Mam and Dad’s house by now?”
“I don’t think she wants to come back. Ever,” Barry said. “Our starting a home together was a terrible mistake.”
“Come on, boy, I thought you and she were made for each other?”
“It’s my brother she loved and I was a fool to think I could take his place.”
“You were stupid to take her to the place where she and Joseph were going to live, I’ll agree with that.”
“You mean that might be the trouble?”
“It couldn’t have helped could it, daft ’aporth!”
“I never thought,” Barry frowned.
“You’d better do some thinking straightaway then, hadn’t you?”
“Perhaps the flat was a part of the trouble, but not all. Caroline resented my going out evening after evening on appointments. But what could I do? I have to work.”
“You have to keep her, I can see that.”
“I didn’t actually keep her, Basil.”
“What d’you mean?”
“It’s the business. I’m putting everything I earn back into the business.”
“Apart from house-keeping you mean?”
“We used Caroline’s wages so I could put any money I earned into improving the premises and getting better equipment.”
“Wouldn’t it have been better to build your home first, then start your fanciful plans?” There was an edge to Basil’s voice that startled Barry.
“I was doing it for them!” Barry defended. “It was all for them. I had this plan—”
“I see. So that’s why your wife has left you and gone back home to Mam and Dad? Some plan! I’d never had a regular job in my life until I married Eleri. Now I take great pride in handing her my wage packet every Friday. I take out all the small change and give her the rest.”
“It’s different for you. You’re satisfied with a boring job like nightwatchman. I couldn’t accept anything like that.”
“Satisfied? I hate it! But I’ll do it for my family forever if necessary. Too bloody high and mighty for the ordinary you are, Barry Martin. If I lost this job I’d go right out and get another! I’d do anything. Anything at all, to bring Eleri and Ronnie a wage every Friday. That’s responsibility, Barry. Heard of that, have you?”
Barry stared after the tall, spindly figure of Basil as he hurried away from him, his feet sounding like a scythe as he swished angrily through the thickening June grasses. He had never, ever heard the man lose his temper before. And about nothing. Basil was too thick to understand about ambition, he decided. How could someone who worked at an uninspired activity like nightwatchman, realise what ambition was? Irritation and a touch of superiority kept him angry as he turned and walked back to Sophie Street. He was too upset to visit the Griffithses tonight.
Victoria went with her mother and the two youngest Joneses to the imposing premises of Gwennie Woodlas’s gown shop. She was dressed neatly in a skirt and blouse and carried a shopping bag. She was dreading the visit, although having her mother and the two little brothers with her helped her to feel less conspicuous. They walked past twice without entering as they could see through the glass door that customers were being served.
“I’m not going in until the place is empty,” she whispered to her mother and was rewarded with a nod of agreement.
“She locks the door if she has someone important to attend to,” her mother told her. “Perhaps, as you are marrying Jack Weston she might do that for you.”
“His name isn’t Weston, Mam. No matter what Gladys does, she can’t change the fact that he is Jack Heath. The Weston is an affectation insisted on by Gladys on a promise of an allowance. Jack has always thought it silly.”
“You can do what you like when you have money,” her mother chuckled. “Will I have a daughter with a hyphenated name, then?”
“No you won’t! And, if we don’t get in there soon you won’t have one with a bride’s dress either!”
To her dismay, it was Megan Weston who came forward to serve her, Gwennie being busy with books in the small office beyond the showroom.
“Victoria, dear,” Megan smiled. “Come to see if we can make a presentable bride out of you, have you?” She smiled sweetly and added sotto voce, “Take my advice and don’t chose anything too splendid, you need confidence and stunning looks to get away with most of these. Better really for you to go to one of the stores. But I’ll get out a few to show you, as you’re here, shall I?”
Victoria swallowed the insults and stepped towards the rack of bridal dresses under the dust sheet.
“Don’t touch, I’ll take some out for you,” Megan said at once. Victoria stepped back as if stung.
“I need to look,” she said rebelliously.
“They’re so expensive and the fabric so easily soiled,” Megan said.
Victoria wiped her small hands on her skirt and stood there, tears enlarging her eyes.
Her mother took her arm and began to pull her towards the door. Gwennie had obviously heard something of the exchange as she came forward, pushed Megan aside and smiled her heavily-made-up smile.
“Go and make tea for our customers, Megan. And turn the notice on the door to closed, if you please.” There was a grittiness about the voice as she guided Victoria and her mother to the plush chairs in the corner. “Now, Victoria, dear, what did you have in mind? I want to make you the most beautiful bride the town has ever seen.”
“I thought of cream, not white,” Victoria began. A stifled giggle was heard from the office and Gwennie stalked across and closed the door.
“Will you try a few of each, dear? You might change your mind when you see how a lovely skin like yours glows against pure white.” Dresses were lifted from the rails one by one and hung around the showroom, each one confusing Victoria more. How could she choose? They were all lovely and, besides, she had no idea of the cost and without some guidelines she was afraid she would select one and then not be able to afford it. Oh, how she wished the dreaded wedding was over and she and Jack were settled in their home.
The trying on was frightening at first, Megan’s words running through her head and making her afraid of damaging the pristine garments. But as the second and then a third slipped over her slim shoulders it began to be fun. Gwennie flattered and advised and assured her she needn’t worry about the price tags, they were tucked well out of sight and not for her to concern herself with.
The one she eventually chose was white satin. It was ankle length with a full skirt and tight waist. There was a panel of embroidery on the bodice and the neckline crossed low down and rose to the shoulders in sparkling folds. With her shy expression, and the diamanté catching the light and giving her an aura, she had an air of mysterious beauty.
“It’s the one,” Gwennie whispered.
The others agreed. Her mother sobbed and blinked her eyes. Her young brother stared and said, “Blimey,” in great awe.
As Victoria stepped forward to be helped out of it, Gwennie stopped her with an imperious hand.
“Megan?” she called and Megan stepped out of the office with a tray of tea in her hands. “I want you to look at this beautiful child and tell me, have you ever seen a more radiant bride? Because I don’t think I have.”
When Victoria and her family had gone, Gwennie turned angrily to her assistant and said, “If you look half as stunning on your wedding day as that lovely, shy child – who came to us for help and not insults – will on hers, I for one will be surprised. And I will not tolerate you using my showroom for your pettiness towards a girl because she has the temerity to be marrying your cousin. Now, leave. I don’t want you in my shop another minute.”
Megan walked home slowly, utterly ashamed. How could she have been so unkind? The days when she and Joan shocked everyone and got away with it because they were free and extremely wealthy and able to do exactly what they wished, were gone. She hadn’t even enjoyed it. Certainly not as much as she and Joan would once have done. Joan had always been the one to suggest their most outrageous behaviour. But not now. Joan was marrying Viv Lewis and was wrapped up in Grandfather’s business and plans for her future.
She had always been the quieter one, the less devilish of the two Weston Girls. What had got into her? Was she so embittered that she had to use her position to humiliate poor little Victoria, for idle fun? She had imagined recounting the interlude to Joan and sharing the joke, but now she was the one who was humiliated. She had been sacked. Megan Fowler-Weston, one of the famous Weston Girls had been ignominiously sacked!
When she reached home she was relieved to find her mother out. Since taking in boarders to help recover from the financial disasters that had beset the Weston family, Sally was kept very busy, shopping and cooking and making sure the house was as clean as she could make it. For Megan it was a relief to be on her own. She went up to her room and sat at her dressing table staring at her reflection in the mirror. What a pain to have let herself down so badly. Now she would have to find another job and it wouldn’t be as enjoyable as working for Gwennie and her “Gowns For The Discerning Woman”.
She was so intent on the scrutiny of her features, and her thoughts on a search for employment, and how she was going to explain to her mother why she no longer worked for Gwennie, that she didn’t notice the envelope for some time. The letter, placed there by her mother, had a London postmark and, frowning, she slit it open.
It was from Terrence Jenkins and for a moment she pushed it aside unwilling to read what he had to say.
Terrence was related to the family who lived in Montague Court. They were once wealthy landowners but now ran the family home as a restaurant and hotel.
He was the only man with whom she had ever fallen in love. She stared at his writing on the envelope and remembered how he had excited her. If he hadn’t “forced her”, they might still be together. She and Joan might have been planning that double wedding they had dreamed of as children. But he had forced her and frightened her half to death by fears of having a baby: and by fear of how much she had wanted and enjoyed it, she admitted with a slight blush.
The Jenkinses had been one of Grandmother Weston’s failures, she mused. On learning that they were in reduced circumstances, similar to herself, or so she fondly thought, she had tried to befriend them and had invited them to her Christmas Party at which she had hoped to find husbands for her two granddaughters. Of the Jenkinses, only Terrence had made an appearance and instead of adding a bit of “class” to the proceedings, he had caused a fight. In spite of her melancholy, she chuckled at the memory.
Terrence’s ex-fiancée’s brother had turned up and attacked him as punishment for jilting the girl at the altar. Jack and Viv and some of the others had joined in and it was Grandmother’s deepest regret that the fight hadn’t been started by the Griffithses so she could say, “told you so”, but by her most prestigious guest, Terrence, one of the Jenkinses of Montague Court.
Slowly, she unfolded the letter and began to read. It wasn’t very long.
Dear, Darling Megan,
Please forgive my writing to you after you begged me not to. I can’t tell you how many times I have filled pages then thrown them away.
Please will you write back and tell me how you are? And, if you miss me as much as I miss you?
I would give anything for just the briefest of moments with you.
If I visit my family at Montague Court, will you consider allowing me to buy you tea?
Please, dear Megan, put me out of my misery and write,
Yours forever,
Terry.
Megan tore it into pieces and dropped it into the litter bin with a picture of love-birds on the side.
Frank was dreading hearing from Percy Flemming. Why had he listened to the man? What had he been thinking of, getting involved in something so dangerous? Poaching a few salmon or some pheasants was one thing, but knocking out a watchman? Someone like Basil? That was something very different.
It was towards the end of June when he saw him. He had just finished sawing up a van-load of wood ready to sell the following day around the houses, and was walking across the fields towards The Railwayman’s and a pint with his friends. Someone hailed him from just inside the wood.
He wanted to walk on, pretend he hadn’t heard, hope that Percy would give up on him and find someone else to do the job. How was he supposed to knock out a watchman? A clout from a spade on the back of the head? With sleeping tablets? Where would he find a spade? Just standing there nice and handy in the watchman’s hut? Or walk along with one across his shoulder in broad daylight so everyone would see him? And tablets? How could he get hold of knockout pills? Could he casually tell the doctor he wanted to put someone to sleep a bit earlier than they’d intended? It was madness.
“Frank!” Percy called running to catch up with him. “Long-legged lot, the Griffithses. Didn’t you hear me calling?”
“Oh, hello Percy. Coming for a pint?”
“We don’t want to be seen together now do we, boy?” Percy said disapprovingly. “Meet me at the edge of Pigog Wood tomorrow night at ten.”
“I don’t think I’m up to this, Percy,” he said.
“Too late, boy. You’re in and in you stay.”
Frank walked on towards the town and wondered idly whether he could leave town for a while. It seemed the only way. But he only had enough money to take him to Cardiff, and from the look of Percy’s face that wouldn’t be far enough.
Rhiannon was worried about the continuing absence of Caroline from the flat. If only she and Barry could be persuaded to talk to someone. Someone who could help them sort out the problem before it was too late. They were both so unhappy; neither appeared relieved at the separation, there had to be a way of putting things right between them.
Barry was filling the flat with a surplus of things as if to disguise the fact that it had been intended to be his home. Chairs were pushed out of the way and cameras and flash lights and all the paraphernalia of a professional photographer filled every space. She opened the door one day to call up and ask if she could come up and make some tea, and found the sides of the stairs filled with boxes.
“Barry? What are you doing? This isn’t safe you know. What if there was a fire? You could be blocked in.”
“It’s only until I get my new premises,” he called down. “Stay there and I’ll make your tea and hand it to you.”
The doorbell tinkled and a voice said, “Make one for me as well, will you Barry?”
“Nia? Is something wrong?” Rhiannon asked.
“Wrong? Why should there be? I was passing and I called to see you, that’s all,” Nia smiled.
As customers called in, she helped serve and when their tea was handed to them across the barricade of boxes, she sat beside Rhiannon and asked her in a whisper,
“What’s going on?”
“He’s trying to forget that he was hoping to live there with Caroline. That’s what!” Rhiannon whispered back. “He’s cramming the place till he can hardly move. Any old thing, just to hide the fact it could have been a home. He has the double bed propped against the wardrobe and he sleeps on the couch. He’s so stiff he can hardly move some mornings and serves him right too. What’s happened to those two?”
“Caroline walked out, that’s all he’ll tell me. My son absolutely refuses to discuss it, dear.”
“I don’t know what’s happened either,” Rhiannon said. “I can make a few guesses though.”
“I think they both lost their nerve and each believes the other regrets the attempt to stay married.”
“I think it’s ghosts,” Rhiannon said firmly. “Living here has unlocked the past for them both, but especially for Caroline. It’s brought it all back; the happiness she and Joseph shared and the tragedy of his death. Sorry if it upsets you, saying this, but don’t you think they were wrong to set up home in the very place Caroline intended to live with your Joseph?”
“I thought so at the time. I still think so, but I daren’t mention it.”
“Pity, it might have helped. They used to meet here before they told anyone they loved each other, didn’t they? Secret meetings that must give every room a special memory.”
“Exactly. How could Barry expect her to live with him in a place resounding with such memories?”
At the top of the stairs, Barry was listening. He hadn’t given a moment’s thought to Caroline’s request for them to live somewhere else. What nonsense to think the flat was the cause of their problem! Caroline wasn’t a fanciful kind of girl and she understood that it wasn’t sensible to pay a high rent when his mother allowed them to live here practically rent-free. But at least it was something to discuss, when everything he said of late was a conversation stopper.
As soon as his mother had gone he went around to the Griffithses in high hopes and asked Caroline if she would start again in a different place.
“Everything else would be the same, would it?” she asked in her quiet, calm voice. “Nothing else would change?”
“I’ll still work hard at building the business and I’m afraid you’ll still have to spend a lot of evenings on your own, but it’s for our future, yours and mine and little Joseph’s.”
“No, Barry. I’m sorry, but I’m staying here with Mam.”
The wedding dress was delivered to Goldings Street and Victoria carried it upstairs to the small bedroom she shared with her mother. The wardrobe was old and smelled slightly of damp so she hung it on the picture rail and sat on the bed to admire it.
Her mother followed her up and sat beside her.
“Go on, try it on again,” she coaxed. “The boys won’t be home for ages yet and the youngsters are both asleep.”
Together they removed the tissue that protected its shoulders and, with her face aglow, Victoria stood and allowed her mother to slip the dress over her head. It felt crisp and cool and gave her a feeling of excitement the like of which she had never known. Jack would see her in this as she walked down the aisle to become his wife.
Entering the church filled with people would be terrifying, but once she could see Jack, the faces would fade to a misty haze and she would be aware of no one but him. Her face glowed with happiness as she imagined it all.
Stepping onto a stool to protect its delicate lace train, she admired herself in the yellow mirror on the old wardrobe.
“Jack will be so proud,” her mother whispered.
“And so will I. The Westons will never have had such a lovely bride.”
The Westons. For a moment Victoria had forgotten them. That sea of faces in the church became sharply focused and she saw Jack’s family looking at her with their false smiles. They would all be there, watching, criticising and waiting for her to do something embarrassing. Turning away from her reflection she gave a deep sigh.
“It’s a beautiful dress, Mam, but I still wish Jack and I were marrying in a register office. Don’t you?”
“No, dear. Not now I’ve see you wearing this dress. I want the whole town to see how lovely you are.” She guessed the reason for her daughter’s show of nerves and, after hanging up the dress and covering it with tissue paper, she hugged her daughter for a long, long time.
Frank met Percy as arranged and, this time, he was given more of the plan. He tried to talk himself out of listening. He wanted to get out while he still could. Once he knew the finer details he would be unable to escape, he would be a danger to the other members of the team.
“Don’t tell me, Percy. I’ve changed my mind, I don’t want to know. Find someone else will you? I won’t say a word about it. You can be sure of that.”
“The stockroom will be full, and at the same time there’ll be money to pay the workers. It’ll be there for two nights only, so we have to be ready,” Percy said, ignoring Frank’s plea.
“We’ll be caught.”
“The goods will be taken straight to London and sold on before anyone realises they’re missing. You can safely leave that side of things to me, boy.”
“What about the watchman? He’ll know if he’s been knocked out or coaxed away from his post won’t he? And what about me? Won’t he recognise me if I sit and have a cup of tea with him all cosy like, and put a few tablets in to close his eyes for a few hours? No Percy. I’m out of it.”
“Too late for that. We can’t risk anything at this late stage, boy.” He smiled in the darkness and added, “You haven’t asked yet where it’s to be.”
“I don’t want to know. Count me out before you tell me.”
“It’s Waterman and Francis.”
“What? Then you know I can’t do it! That’s where our Basil works!”
“And that is exactly why you must, boy.”