Tiger Ragtime Read Free Page B

hotel, Freddie?’
    ‘The Windsor?’ the bruiser who’d sat alongside him mumbled through badly fitting false teeth.
    ‘The street?’ he checked.
    ‘Stuart Street.’
    ‘Put my luggage in the bedroom of my suite when it arrives and make sure your rooms are on the same floor. I’ll be along shortly.’
    ‘You don’t want one of us to come with you, boss?’
    Aiden asked.
    ‘No.’ The reply was definite.
    ‘But, boss …’
    ‘Nothing’s going to happen to me at a carnival. Don’t worry – your meal ticket is safe, Aiden. Don’t forget to tip the driver.’ Aled pulled his sailor’s cap down to cover most of his face and walked away. The taxi driver watched Aled stroll into the square and filed away a mental description. The police occasionally asked him if he’d seen any ‘suspicious characters’ and had twice tipped him five bob when he’d been able to give them what they wanted. He had a funny feeling that the coppers might be asking questions about these three men sooner rather than later, and over the years he had learned to respect his instincts.
    He’d marked the two bruisers down as hired thugs, but the blond man looked more dangerous. Despite his workmen’s clothes he had the air of authority that came with money – and lots of it. He couldn’t even hazard a guess why someone like him would want to stay in Butetown, but he sensed that it wouldn’t be for any good reason.
    ‘This will be the first time David’s seen Edyth since he left hospital. Do you think he really has got over her?’ Mary asked Harry anxiously.
    Harry wished he could reassure his wife, but he knew Mary would see through any platitudes. ‘I don’t know the answer to that question any more than you do, darling.’ He stepped forward so Ruth could see a Noah’s ark float crammed with ‘bird’ toddlers dressed in capes covered with chicken feathers. They were surrounded by older children in animal costume who were having difficulty keeping the younger ones away from the edge of the cart. ‘Yes, Ruthie, monkeys.’
    ‘And teddy bears,’ she cried in delight.
    ‘I’ve never heard mention of Noah rounding up a pair of teddy bears, but as they’re here now, he must have.’ Mary knew Harry was talking to Ruth so he wouldn’t have to discuss David’s obsession with Edyth, but she refused to drop the subject. ‘What if David is still in love with Edyth?’
    ‘If he is, he is. There is nothing we can do about it.’ Harry didn’t want to consider what his headstrong brother-in-law might do, should Edyth reject him a second time.
    ‘Harry.’ Mary touched his arm.
    ‘All we can do is be there to help David pick up the pieces should Edyth break his heart a second time, darling.’
    ‘You do know that Edyth has never encouraged him.’ Much as Mary loved her brother, she wasn’t blind to his faults and she had grown to love and regard all of Harry’s family as her own; especially Edyth, who hadn’t allowed the disaster of her marriage to sour her, or affect her ability to turn any family gathering, no matter how small, into a party.
    ‘I know,’ Harry mused thoughtfully. ‘That’s why I find his fixation with her so difficult to understand.’
    Aled James stood behind a lamp-post across the street from Harry Evans and his family and watched them. He hadn’t seen Harry for twenty-three years, but he had recognised him as soon as he’d caught sight of him through the taxi window because Harry was a mirror image of himself. They could have been twins. Same height, same slim upright figure, same shade of pale blond hair and blue eyes.
    The only difference between him and Harry had been in their upbringing – and their fortune. His mother had told him before she died that although Harry had been born a bastard the same as him, their father Mansel James’s family had left every penny the family owned to Harry, simply because, unlike her, Harry’s mother was middle-class. The injustice of the James