It was almost half past five and they were beginning to get very busy again when Flora suddenly realised that Tilly hadn’t returned.
‘She should have been back ages ago,’ she commented to Hattie as she glanced towards the door.
‘Happen she got held up. There was probably a queue at the butcher’s or perhaps she had to go elsewhere for something. Don’t you worry, young Tilly is as honest as the day is long, she’ll be back.’ Hattie smiled reassuringly at Flora as she handed a customer their change but Flora was beginning to feel distinctly uneasy. It was so unlike Tilly to take long over an errand. She usually almost ran all the way there and back, keen to get the praise she would receive when she got back … and it was very dark outside and Tilly was so vulnerable.
Half an hour later Jimmy, Sam and Ernie sauntered in for their evening meal as they often did after they’d finished work and they saw at a glance that something was troubling Flora.
‘It’s Tilly, she’s been gone for over two hours now but the butcher’s is no more than ten minutes away and she’s never late,’ she explained when they asked her what was wrong.
‘Hmm.’ Like Hattie, Jimmy didn’t seem overly concerned as yet. ‘How about if she ain’t back by the time we’ve finished eating, we go out an’ have a scout round for her.’
Flora smiled at them. ‘Would you? Thank you.’ She hurried to get them their meal, and when Tilly still hadn’t returned when the three young men had finished eating, they too began to feel uneasy.
‘The butcher’s was it you said she went?’ asked Sam and at Flora’s nod they turned up the collars of their thick coats and headed for the door. ‘Right, we’ll go an’ have a look-see and let you know.’
The butcher was closing up when they got there but a quick enquiry established that yes, Tilly had been there but had left some two hours or so ago.
Back outside the shop they stood looking up and down the street.
‘I bet she took a short cut through one o’ the alleys,’ Sam suggested.
Jimmy nodded in agreement. ‘Yes, but which one? There’s three or four from here that could take her back to the café.’
The only way to find out was to walk along each one but the first one showed them nothing unusual so they set off for the next. The alleys were acting like wind tunnels and the bitter cold was threatening to slice them in two as it whistled along them. There was nothing down the second alley either and now they were gravely concerned. It was fast approaching seven o’clock at night. Tilly would never have willingly wandered the streets for so long.
‘Let’s just nip back to the café to make sure she ain’t gone back there yet,’ Ernie suggested and heads bent against the wind they hurried on their way.
‘There’s not been a sniff of her,’ Hattie told them, drawing them away from the customers. ‘Do you think we should call the police? Tilly is so vulnerable. Perhaps someone persuaded her to go away with them?’
‘No, don’t do that just yet, there’s two more short cuts that she might have taken that we need to check first,’ Ernie told her, then with Sam and Jimmy close on his heels they set off again. They hastily made their way back to the butcher’s then took the third alley. They hadn’t gone far along it, feeling their way along the cold damp walls, when Sam hissed, ‘Hey, look there, against the wall.’ Even as he spoke his foot kicked the basket that Tilly had dropped and he recognised it immediately.
‘This is Tilly’s basket,’ he breathed as a feeling of dread coursed down his spine like iced water. Seconds later they were leaning over the prone figure and Sam asked shakily, ‘Is it Tilly?’
Ernie shook his head. ‘I don’t know, it’s too dark to see but whoever it is they’re in a bad way.’ He felt for a pulse in their wrist and his hand came away sticky with blood. ‘Run and find a cop quick an’ tell ’em we’re goin’ to need an ambulance. This girl is in a real bad way,’ he said urgently.
Sam sprinted away but Jimmy stayed close to Ernie’s side just in case the attacker came back. The police soon arrived and Tilly was stretchered out to the ambulance waiting in the road. When the men caught sight of her, they gasped with shock.
‘My dear God!’ Ernie breathed. ‘What have they done to the poor girl?’
Tilly’s face was so swollen and bloody that she was hardly recognisable and she was barely conscious. And that was only the part of her that they could see. They all dreaded to think what her other injuries might be.
It was over an hour later when Jimmy and Sam returned to the café. Hattie, Jia Li and Flora were busily cleaning in readiness for the next morning but one glance at the young men’s faces told them that something was gravely wrong.
‘Did you find her?’ Flora asked fearfully.
Sam nodded solemnly. ‘Yes, we did, she was lyin’ in an alley an’ …’ He gulped deep in his throat, setting his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. He was badly shaken by what he had seen. ‘She’s been badly beaten by the look o’ things. We fetched a cop an’ she’s been taken to the city hospital, but from what the ambulance men were sayin’ it looks touch an’ go whether she’ll make it.’
‘Oh, dear God!’ Hattie sat down on the nearest chair with a thump. ‘An’ where is Ernie?’
‘He went in the ambulance with her.’
‘Does anyone have any idea who might have done this?’ Flora croaked. Tilly was such a sweet, innocent girl that it was inconceivable that anyone would want to hurt her.
Jimmy shook his head as he twisted his cap in his hand. ‘She was unconscious when they took her away.’
‘I’d best get to inform her parents what’s happened,’ Hattie said, but Sam shook his head.
‘There’s no need, Ernie gave the police Tilly’s address an’ they’ll have done it.’
Hattie began to cry, great wracking sobs that shook her body. ‘I’ve known that girl since the day she drew breath,’ she gasped. ‘An’ she wouldn’t hurt a fly. Why, when she were growin’ up an’ the other kids started to make fun of her cos she was a bit slow my Ernie always stood up for her. She used to follow him about like a little puppy dog. He’ll take it hard if she don’t make it.’
‘She will make it!’ Flora declared past the lump in her throat. ‘She has to! But come on now, we should get to the hospital in case there’s anything we can do.’
When they arrived at the hospital Tilly’s parents were already there talking to a policeman, looking distraught.
‘The doctor is examining her now,’ Tilly’s mother told Hattie as she wrung her hands in despair. Tilly was only just clinging to her life.
‘And has she managed to say anything?’ Hattie queried.
‘Yes …’ The woman rubbed her forehead as she tried to remember. She was so upset that everything was a jumble in her head. ‘She only came round very briefly but I think she said something about the man who did this calling her Jia Li … I think she said he sounded like a Chinese.’
They all gazed at each other but it was Flora who ground out, ‘Yung Huan! He must have thought from behind that Tilly was Jia Li with her long black hair!’
‘Who is this man?’ The policeman was already standing with his pencil poised over his notebook and as Flora haltingly told him Huan’s address and what Huan had done to Jia Li and the grudge that he bore her, the policeman nodded at his colleague.
‘We’ll get off and check this out right away.’
Once the policemen had gone all they could do was wait for the doctor who was examining Tilly to come and tell them what was happening.
‘She has multiple fractures,’ the grey-haired doctor told them tiredly when he eventually appeared. ‘All of her fingers on one hand are broken. It looks like someone has stamped on them. She also has a broken leg, a broken arm and two fractured ribs. We also suspect that she may have internal bleeding so she will have to go to theatre for us to have a look at what’s happening inside.’
‘But she will survive?’
The doctor wearily glanced at the hope in the girl’s mother’s eyes and wished he could give better news.
‘It’s too soon to tell at this stage.’ He prided himself on never giving false hope. ‘We’ll know more once we’ve had her in theatre. So now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and scrub up. There’s no time to lose.’
It was the early hours of the morning before the doctor appeared again, still wearing the gown he had worn to theatre, and looking, if that were possible, even more tired, but then he had been on duty since six o’clock the morning before.
‘Well, we’ve set all her broken bones,’ he told them. ‘And in actual fact she’s been a very lucky girl. One of the broken ribs was just a fraction away from piercing her heart. Had that have happened there would have been nothing we could do. We’ve managed to stop the internal bleeding and the rest of her injuries are cuts and bruises which will heal themselves given time.’
‘So she will live?’
He looked at the sea of hopeful faces and gave them the slightest glimmer of hope. ‘She’s managed to survive the surgery so things are looking slightly better but the next twenty-four hours will be critical. I suggest you all go home and try to get some sleep now. There’s nothing more you can do here. She’s in God’s hands now.’
‘Thank you so much, doctor.’ Tilly’s mother was sobbing and he gently patted her arm before he turned and walked away.
The following morning, just as they had opened the café for the breakfast rush, the girls had a visit from the same policeman they had spoken to at the hospital the night before. None of them had slept very well, and they could only hope that Tilly had made it through the night.
‘We went to the laundry and were told by some of the women and girls that work there that Yung Huan had indeed been there shortly before. He was in a very agitated state and covered in blood, which leads us to believe that he was the one responsible for the attack,’ the policeman informed them gravely. ‘Unfortunately, he then disappeared and we haven’t been able to trace him.’
‘So what will happen now?’ Flora questioned.
‘We have an alert out for his arrest. Every police officer in New York is scouring the streets looking for him and furthermore two other girls from the laundry have now come forward to say that he has raped them too so it’s looking very worrying. He’s clearly a very dangerous man.’
‘He didn’t rape Tilly, did he?’ Flora asked fearfully. Knowing what an innocent Tilly was she dreaded to think how she would cope with it if he had.
‘Her underclothes were pushed aside but it looks like he had second thoughts because the doctors found no evidence of rape,’ the officer informed her and Flora sighed with relief.
‘I wonder if I might have a word with Jia Li about Yung’s attack on her.’
Jia Li licked her lips as she glanced around at all of them, then she nodded and holding tight to Flora’s hand, they went into the kitchen away from the customers. Once there, Jia Li told him the full story of what had happened, all the while clinging to Flora’s hand. Flora knew how hard it still was for her to talk about it and throughout her explanation, she could feel Jia Li trembling, but she was proud of her friend for managing to speak so calmly.
When he left the policeman was grim-faced after taking Jia Li’s statement and assured them all that everything that could be done to apprehend Yung Huan was being done. ‘If Tilly should die we’ll be looking for a murderer,’ he told them gravely. ‘But even if she doesn’t I can guarantee with the evidence we’ve got against him he’ll be put away for a very long time when we do catch him.’
All they could do now was pray that he was right, and that Tilly would survive.