Chapter Forty-Two
Annie sat reading the newspaper late one evening, a couple of days after Peggy’s call, when there was a resounding crash and a brick came hurtling through the window, missing Annie and Alfred, who was lying by her feet, by inches.
She screamed and rushed to the window just in time to see a dark-clad figure racing away in the street below.
‘What the ’ell was that?’ Nancy asked as she appeared in her nightgown at the bedroom door. There was glass everywhere and Annie was shaking.
‘Someone just threw a brick from down there,’ Annie croaked as the cold wind whistled through the broken glass making the curtains billow.
‘Did yer manage to see who it were?’ Nancy asked fearfully.
Annie shook her head. ‘ I saw someone running away but it was too dark to see who it was.’
‘Then we’d best phone the police an’ report it afore we start cleanin’ the mess up.’
‘No, you go back to bed, I’ll do it,’ Annie insisted.
‘But why would anyone want to do that?’ Nancy questioned.
Annie shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea but I’d best try and get something to block this window up till morning else we’ll freeze to death. I’ll give the police a ring first, though I doubt they’ll do anything. They’ll probably just say it was youths larking about again.’
She was right. The police did call round to file a report, but admitted that the chances of catching the culprit or culprits were slim.
‘It could have been youths or someone on the way home from the pub who’d had a skinful,’ a fresh-faced young police officer informed her as he snapped his notepad shut.
‘But surely there have been too many incidents now for it to be as simple as that?’ Annie said worriedly. She went on to tell him of the shop break-in, about Nancy being attacked out in the yard, and then again in the street, and about the shadowy figure that she sometimes saw across the road.
The young constable simply shrugged. ‘As I said, I doubt it was anything sinister. We have incidents like this happening in London all the time. And so if there’s nothing else will you be all right now, ma’am?’
‘Yes, I’ll be fine.’ Annie sighed with frustration.
After she’d seen him out, she found a large piece of cardboard to cover the broken glass as best she could, before starting the clean-up operation.
But she was badly shaken. It had only been a short while since the attack on Nancy, and now she felt vulnerable again and had a horrible feeling that the incidents were linked.
Marie was horrified when she called in the next day and heard what had happened. There were already men there replacing the broken glass but she could see that Annie was upset.
‘And you ’ave no idea who might ’ave done this to you?’ Marie questioned. She was becoming concerned now.
Annie bit her lip before admitting. ‘There is one person who would be capable. That’s Reggie, but he’s back in Nuneaton.
Surely he wouldn’t come all this way just to hurl a brick through my window?
Oh, I’m probably letting my imagination run away with me.
’ She sighed as she rubbed her forehead where a headache was forming.
‘I’m just relieved that whoever it was didn’t hurl it through the shop window, it could have caused even more damage down there. ’
‘There we are then, missus. All done,’ the glazier said shortly, standing back to inspect the new pane of glass.
‘Thank you.’ Annie paid him and saw him on his way before putting the kettle on. She’d been up for most of the night making sure that she’d swept up all the broken glass and she was exhausted.
‘You know, I’m beginning to think it’s time to go back to Nuneaton,’ she confided to Marie.
‘Ruth doesn’t need me to run the shop here and now that I’ve finally found my parents I’d like to spend more time with them.
Oh, I know the circus will be moving on after Christmas, but they visit our town regularly, so I’d still see more of them if I lived there than if I stay here.
There are just two things stopping me. The first is Reggie – the further I can keep away from him the better.
And the second is Nancy. I’m not so sure that’d she’d want to come with me and leave Jamie. ’
‘Yes, and you also forget that you rent your house out to Susan and Tim now,’ Marie pointed out sensibly. ‘So where would you live?’
‘As it happens, I wouldn’t want to go back to that house even if it was empty – it holds too many memories of Monty,’ Annie admitted sadly. ‘So, I’d probably rent somewhere else for us until I could find another little place that would be suitable.’
Marie looked sad. ‘Then you must give this a lot of thought. But if you do go, I will miss you terribly. I was ’oping that you would be ’ere for the birth of my baby. I was going to ask you to be godmother.’
Annie smiled. ‘Wherever I live I shall be here for that,’ she promised. ‘And I’d be honoured to be a godparent. Now let’s have this tea before it goes cold.’
Annie put the possibility of moving back to her hometown to Nancy that evening as she was getting Adam ready for bed.
Nancy flushed. ‘Actually, I’ve been ’alf expectin’ this,’ she admitted. ‘You’ve been like a cat on ’ot bricks fer some time now an’ I knew yer weren’t ’appy, so I spoke to Jamie about it.’
‘And what did he say?’
Nancy began to fiddle with the edge of the tablecloth.
‘He told his mam an’ she said that if yer do go ’ome I can stay wi’ them at their place in the East End till me an’ Jamie get wed.
It ain’t that I don’t love yer both,’ she added hastily.
‘But I couldn’t leave Jamie now. I know I won’t ever love another chap like I love ’im. ’
Annie felt tears prick at the back of her eyes, although this wasn’t entirely unexpected.
It was obvious that she and Jamie were very much in love, and his parents were good, hard-working, respectable people so she could hardly raise any objections.
She knew they would keep Nancy safe and treat her as one of their own. But she would miss her so much.
‘In that case I’ll have to give leaving here some serious thought,’ she said quietly. ‘But don’t worry, I’m not in any rush. I’ll decide after Christmas and the wedding.’
Nancy nodded and for the time being the subject was dropped.
The next few days passed peacefully, although Annie was still not sleeping properly and found herself getting up during the night to check no one was loitering outside.
She’d enjoyed the time she had spent looking after Adam herself, and had made the decision that if she did return to Nuneaton she would not start any other businesses until he went to school.
He was growing up so fast and she didn’t want to miss a single milestone in his young life.
In fact, she was concerned that she may have been neglecting him.
Admittedly she had always been close by, but Nancy had spent far more time with him than she had.
She also felt that it would be no bad thing to put some distance between herself and Alex.
Since the night at Marie’s when they’d dined together, he had been constantly on her mind, although she hadn’t so much as mentioned his name to Marie.
The less she knew about what they had meant to each other the better.
After all, Marie knew he was a married man, so she was hardly likely to condone their feelings for one another.
Back in Nuneaton, a young girl pulled the collar of her coat up and hurried beneath the canopy of the bare branches of the weeping willow trees that grew on the banks of the River Avon in Riversley Park.
She was nervous about being out alone so late, but her boyfriend was ill and had been unable to walk her home.
Still, she reasoned, she was almost at the entrance to the park now, and once she reached the street lamps she would feel less vulnerable.
All around her the grass was coated with thick hoar frost and her breath hung on the air like lace in front of her as she quickened her steps.
The sound of the wind soughing through the trees made her continually look from side to side.
She peered ahead into the darkness and frowned as she saw a dark shape moving towards her.
Within seconds the person was level with her and she stood aside to let them pass, but they stopped dead.
Moving quickly she tried to pass them instead, but a hand snaked out and grasped her arm making her scream.
It was clearly a man by the height of him, although it was too dark to see his face.
‘Let me go,’ she gasped fearfully, but he merely chuckled.
‘Not yet, me pretty. I reckon you and I could have a little fun together.’
His leg suddenly came behind her knees and she felt herself falling onto the freezing ground.
It was then that she really began to scream and fight for all she was worth as she realised his intention.
But the screams were shut off abruptly as his hand came across her mouth and she felt his heavy weight on her.
And then he slapped her face so hard that her head rocked on its shoulders and she saw stars.
That was when she realised that she was going to die and tears began to stream down her cold cheeks.
The blows kept coming until she began to feel light-headed and stopped struggling.
At that moment the moon sailed from behind the clouds and as she looked up into his face she whimpered with terror.
It was like looking at the devil himself.
A disfigured face full of hate and menace.
Then suddenly some other forms appeared and the heavy weight was roughly lifted from her.
Vaguely she heard loud voices and saw her attacker being thrown to the ground as another pair of hands tried to help her to her feet. Her rescuers were three young men who had been on their way home from the pub.
‘Get off me, you bastard!’ It was the voice of her attacker.
‘Looks like we’ve got the chap who’s been killin’ all the women,’ she heard one man say breathlessly. He and another of the men had her attacker pinned to the ground with his arm twisted up his back. ‘Ron, run fer a copper an’ tell ’em to come quick. We’ll keep ’im ’ere.’
The third man hared away and the young woman breathed a shaky sigh of relief as she realised that she would live to see another day.
But she was painfully aware that it would have been a very different outcome if the men hadn’t come along when they had.
The largest of the men had the attacker firmly pinned down now, so the second man quickly crossed to the victim.
As things slowly swam back into focus, she lowered her head and wept tears of relief as the man comforted her as best he could until the police arrived.
‘It’s all right, love,’ he soothed. ‘We’ve got the bastard now, an’ hopefully he’ll be hanged or locked up fer a very long time.’
Early the next evening as Annie and Nancy were sitting at dinner, the phone rang and Annie hurried downstairs to answer it. She was surprised to hear Peggy’s voice. She usually rang much later when she knew Adam was in bed so they could have a good natter.
‘Hello, Peggy, is everything all right?’ she asked.
‘Everythin’ is fine wi’ us,’ Peggy assured her. ‘But you’re never gonna guess what’s ’appened ’ere now.’
Annie grinned. ‘No, I’m probably not unless you tell me,’ she agreed.
‘Well, I reckon it’ll come as a bit of a shock,’ Peggy warned.
‘Go on, spit it out.’
‘It’s Reggie. It’s all round the town that he were arrested late last night after tryin’ to rape a young wench in the park.
Poor girl, he gave her a right good hidin’!
Luckily some chaps ’eard her screams an’ got to her just in time, then they tackled Reggie until the police came to arrest ’im.
They reckon it’s ’im attacked all those women. ’
‘Good grief,’ Annie gasped, almost dropping the phone.
She had known Reggie was bad through and through after what he had done to her, but she had never thought he would go to those lengths.
She felt guilty now about not mentioning his name to the police before.
Could she have prevented some of the murders if she had?
But then Reggie was Monty’s brother and she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it.
‘A-are you sure?’ her voice was shaky.
‘Course I bloody am,’ Peggy responded indignantly. ‘An’ they say he’s confessed to the other murders an’ all. I reckon he’ll swing fer this an’ serves ’im right, that’s what I say. At least now when you visit ’ome yer won’t ’ave to keep lookin’ over yer shoulder all the time.’
‘How has his mother taken the news?’ Annie asked.
‘Huh! As yer can imagine, she’s sayin’ it’s all lies, but then she ain’t all the ticket nowadays anyway.
If it were anybody else, I could feel a bit sorry fer ’er, but after how she’s treated you I ain’t got no sympathy.
Seems to me the only decent one to ever come from that brood were your Monty, God rest his soul.
Anyway, I thought I’d let yer know cos I’ve no doubt it’ll be splashed all over the newspapers tomorrow an’ I didn’t want yer to find out that way. ’
Annie felt badly shaken and it was only when she put the phone down that she realised she was trembling. She had no doubt that what Peggy had told her was true, but it still took some sinking in. And to think that she could quite easily have been one of his victims.
Nancy immediately noticed how pale she was when she went back upstairs but didn’t ask any questions until Adam was safely tucked up in bed.
‘So?’ she asked. ‘What did Peggy want? Yer were as white as a ghost when yer came back upstairs.’
Haltingly Annie told her what Peggy had said.
‘I always thought he were evil.’ She shuddered. ‘But at least the women o’ Nuneaton will be able to venture out at night again. An’ it means you won’t ’ave to dread bumpin’ into ’im again either.’
‘Yes, there is that,’ Annie said distractedly. She thought of the brick that had been hurled through the window and the attack on Nancy and the fire back in Nuneaton. If it had been Reggie who had done these things then it meant she was finally safe.