Midnight on Lime Street Read Free Page A

pancake land,’ she sometimes moaned. ‘No ups, no downs, just boring. In Bolton, we were surrounded by hills and fields. It were great.’ The girls would
often sing, ‘We’ll send you home again, Kathleen, to visit all the Woollybacks,’ in a poorly adapted version of an old Irish song. Anyone without a Scouse accent was dismissed as
a country bumpkin.
    Eve nodded; Kate was right, because Meadowbank Farm sat on flat earth behind strategically placed conifers and thick bushes. It was safe, it was hidden and yes, it was dull. But a move nearer to
Liverpool was out of the question. The purchase of this house had been a deliberate act arising from the need for concealment. Leaving Kate in charge, Eve drove to and fro, there and back, the van
sometimes empty, often packed with men. She went to Liverpool and picked up clients at pre-arranged and constantly changing locations. She took them back as well – at least half a dozen trips
hither and yon most nights. This was the only way to run a secret brothel.
    She sat in a chair by the window. ‘I’m getting a bit old for this,’ she mumbled, comforting herself with the knowledge that Don Crawford’s thousand quid would go a long
way towards paying off the mortgage. ‘Except if Miss Frilly Pants wins her bet,’ she added in a whisper. The job would have to continue unless she sold up, since a house of this age
required maintenance, and she was probably stuck with it. Anyway, who else would want to live in a farmhouse without land beyond its own admittedly large gardens? Perhaps it could be made into a
smallholding where vegetables might grow and a few hens could be kept – perhaps pigs and a goat, too. But it wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea.
    Miss Frilly Pants. Ah yes, there was something in her, too, something with a red-hot temper, sharp reactions and a venomous tongue. Twice, she’d lost her rag here; twice, she’d been
removed and stuck in solitude up in one of the attics. On the first occasion, Baby Babs had smashed pots and had thrown a pan at poor Kate; then last year she’d kicked a bloke where it hurt
because he’d wanted stuff Babs didn’t allow – to this day, she refused to perform any act she considered radically unusual. ‘She’ll keep him alive till
Christmas,’ she whispered, ‘but God help him when it comes to Boxing Day, because she’ll have him breathing his last. God, I’ll miss her.’
    An uneasiness crept through Eve’s large body; she should have thought things through. Donald Crawford and Barbara Schofield were each unstable and unpredictable. He was senile, and she was
without patience. It was down to the question of which one would crack first. If he made his baby girl into a cabaret act with himself as audience, he’d better hide all sharp knives first.
‘I’m in danger. If he kills or hurts her and gets arrested, he’ll tell the cops where he bought her, and if she’s caught for attacking him, she’ll blow me up without a
second thought. She’ll plead . . . oh, what is it? Mitigating circumstances? Undue provocation? Having been sold like an animal? Shit. What have I done?’
    Kate knocked before entering the office. ‘Dinner’s ready,’ she announced, referring to the midday meal, a kind of breakfast-cum-lunch. ‘I’m going to ring the big
bell.’
    ‘Shut the door and sit down for a minute, Kate. I think I’ve been a fool.’
    ‘Never in this world,’ was the answer, delivered in the flattened, slower speech birthed in cotton towns. Although mills were gradually being silenced, messages were still mee-mawed,
as if fighting to be lip-read across the hot, sticky din of hell itself.
    ‘I’ve sold Baby to Don Crawford,’ Eve said.
    Kate pursed her lips.
    ‘Did you hear me?’
    Kate answered eventually. ‘I thought she were in a bit of a mood half an hour since. She threw no plates and pans, but she looked like a cornered cat ready to get its claws out for
sharpening.’ She paused for thought.