'It says he died after the war,' interrupted Billy, trying to steer her back to the exercise books. 'What from?'
'He drowned.'
'Gimbals!'
'Oh yes, it was awful. It was an accident down Rivelin Valley. He was out with his dog.' She smiled sadly, as she remembered. 'Oh, him and that little dog; Molly he called it. You should've seen it - a Jack Russell. He loved it. He took it for walks by the river every day after he was demobbed. He worked at the Town Hall so he was always home bang on the dot.'
'What happened?'
'Well, they were never right sure, but they said it looked like the dog must have run into the old Walkley Bank Tilt Mill, after a cat or something - it was all boarded up and fenced off with barbed wire even back then. Them old water mills are so dangerous, and the Tilt is one of the worst with all its rusty old wheels and sumps. Well he must have climbed in to fetch Molly out and fallen down one of the shafts into the leet.'
'What's that?'
'You know, the water that runs underneath where the tilt hammers and them big grinding wheels and stuff used to run. They used to make scythe blades, or shears, or I-don't-know-whats. That big water wheel on the side of the mill drove the tilt hammers and the bellows for the furnaces for forging them. Then they had men sat astride great big grinding wheels running in water troughs in the floor. It was dangerous, horrible work. My father, your great granddad, died of grinders' lung. And a lot of men got hurt with them rotten grindstones.' She gazed off into an imagined distance and dabbed her eyes on her lace handkerchief. 'Well anyway, Tommy must have fallen into one of the shafts in the floor and got washed away and drowned. Poor Annabel, she barely spoke a word after that. Not that she'd ever had much to say before.'
'But that water's hardly a foot deep. How could he drown?'
"How do you know how deep it is? Have you been scroamin about in there? You know it's dangerous. You're not supposed to be in them ruins.'
'You can look through the wire and see it,' he said, quickly cobbling together a defence. 'You don't need to go inside.'
Unconvinced, she eyed him wryly, but dropped the subject. He smothered a sigh of relief and reviewed what he had learned. He would have to tell Yvonne and get it all written into her notes, but first things first, he was going to be late for school. He would have to rush home with the dog, grab his bike and then pedal like a madman.
*
The bell had gone - assembly was over. Things looked extremely black. A painful caning was on the cards for him, even before his school day had started.
He found headmistress Sister Mary and Sister Clare, his waspish form mistress, in the kitchen yard remonstrating with a school-milk deliveryman. The bulky dairyman wilted as the nuns berated him, wagging their fingers in his face, their great wimples fluttering like giant white butterflies.
Billy crept past unseen and slipped into school. That was the easy part. Unfortunately, his classroom was the last one in a row of several with glass partition walls overlooking the only access corridor. It would be impossible to get past all of them and not be spotted by a teacher.
There was nothing else for it, he would have to bluff it out. So, marching smartly along the corridor past the teachers peering suspiciously from their windows, he smiled and nodded to them, as though he had every right to be there and nothing to hide. Each in turn sneered at him, as if discovering dog dirt in the corridor.
He found his classroom in uproar. Left unattended, his classmates were doing what they always did in such circumstances - all hell had broken out. They barely paid him a glance as he joined them. On Sister Clare's desk, the punishment cane lay unattended. Billy decided that a little extra insurance might be in order, in case his lateness had already been noted. He grabbed the cane, raising a gasp from his classmates.
At one end of the room, a great gothic fireplace dominated the wall. Being past Easter there was no fire. The cold grate was trimmed with red and yellow crepe paper, intended to look like flames. Billy ran to it and stuffed the cane as far up the chimney as he could reach. His classmates' attention swung to him, starting a buzz of excited whispering and gasps of admiration.
A few seconds later Sister Clare swept into the room, rosary beads swinging from her belt, butterfly wimple fanning the air. Finding her charges so unusually quiet, she let slip a vinegary smile. Billy, proudly accepted the whispered plaudits of his classmates. It felt like a small triumph. Tomorrow would be Saturday. Sister Clare, he imagined, would spend all weekend searching for her cane, no doubt praying on her knees to Saint Anthony, patron saint of lost things.
*
With Whitsuntide approaching, Saturdays took on a new terror for Billy. His mother would drag him to the city centre for his annual kitting out with new clothes. Many of Sheffield's shops were still struggling to get back on their feet after the war, though an end to clothes rationing had been a welcome boost for trade. On the bomb damaged shopping streets, crumbling gaps, like rotten teeth, punctured the rows of shops. Some had fine Victorian and art deco facades still standing, hiding the burnt out rubble behind them. Civic buildings were pocked with shrapnel scars, several were propped up with heavy buttressing timbers.
The blitz had destroyed much of the city. More than thirty thousand bombs had fallen on shops, factories, houses, schools, and hospitals. Over one particular three-day period, at the height of the blitz, there were one hundred and thirty bomb alerts and sixteen air raids. But when it came to shopping, Billy feared the Luftwaffe much less than he feared his mother in full Whitsuntide outfitting mode.
Mrs Perks had a system for kitting out her son. It worked from the ground upwards. Shoes were always the first on her list. She would drag him around every shoe shop before ending up at the Sheffield and Ecclesall Co-op, "the Arcade", as Sheffielders called it. Billy thought it must be the biggest store in the world. Armed with her dividend card she would scour its many departments for socks, shoes, shirts and school ties. The next stop was Marks and Spencer, which, having been bombed out of its proper home, was temporarily housed in a cinema called the Lansdowne, later the Locarno. It still had its sloping cinema floor. The sales counters were levelled on wooden blocks. Young children could stand at one end of a counter and be seen over its top by the smart, lady assistant, but if they ventured to the other end would sink out of sight like the Titanic, a game many a child played to their parents' annoyance.
Mrs Perks would then drag him up Sheffield's main shopping street, The Moor, to Davy's Cafe in Fargate, for afternoon tea – no buns, too expensive, just tea. It was a rare treat in a bright, shiny place that mixed Edwardian charm with hygienic fifties glass and chrome. For some inexplicable reason, Billy preferred the soul chilling austerity of, The British Restaurant, housed in a dreary prefabricated building next door to the shrapnel scarred City Hall. His granny would sometimes take him there, thrilled by its gloomy ambience, as if it were the Ritz. The wartime Government had set it up to provide off-ration meals for people bombed out of their houses. The portions were enormous, the food plain, salty and dreadful.
Sitting with his mother in Davy's café, wafted by the wonderful smell of roasting coffee, and serenaded by the chink of china and gentile chatter, Billy's daydream of beige sprouts and rubbery gravy ended when Arnold Pearce approached their table. He removed his trilby hat, and cleared his throat like a schoolboy summoned before the headmaster.
'Excuse me, Mrs Perks.'
'Mr Pearce …'
'I'm sorry to bother you when you're – err – taking tea with your son. I was sitting over there - and - err - I saw you. I was wondering how Billy was now after his beating. I'm sorry I couldn't catch the thug who attacked him. I chased after him, but he got away. I wish we could have identified him.'
'Oh he's fine now Mr Pearce thank you. Oh, and thanks for trying to catch the man too. It was very brave of you.'
Pearce shuffled, looking hot and pink. 'Well, I just wish I could have seen who it was.'
Billy was speechless
at this, and gaped at Mr Pearce. It was such a blatant lie. He could hardly believe the man had the nerve to utter it. Of course he must know who had beaten him up. Everybody knew. It had to be Stan Sutcliffe – no other.
Pearce excused himself suddenly, and scuttled off, clutching his hat to his middle.
'That was nice of him,' cooed Billy's mother.
Billy shrugged. 'He's lying,' he snarled. 'He knows very well who it was. Why is he pretending he doesn't? What's he up to?'
'Oh for goodness sake Billy, don't start all that detective stuff again.'
………
CHAPTER SIX
It was Billy's firm opinion that the best things in pikelets are the holes. They are exactly the right size for the butter, and their rims add a touch of crustiness when toasted. Butter, air, and batter, complete the one and indivisible trinity of the pikelet. Oatcakes too, deserve similar veneration. As to which is best, that will always be a moot point. One important consideration is that it is just about possible to fit an entire hot, buttered oatcake in to your mouth at one go, whereas pikelets, once toasted, become crispy and can't easily be scrunched to the same extent.
'Pig!'
At that moment, Billy could not respond to Yvonne's opinion of him, because of the toasted oatcake in his mouth. It was not so much the oatcake she objected to, as Billy's noisy breathing as he devoured it. Had he troubled to blow his nose before stuffing his mouth, she might have let it pass without comment. As it was, her expression reflected her disgust as he struggled to eat without drowning in his nasal fluids.
'Filthy pig!'
The conversation continued in this succinct and one-sided way as they entered the Ebenezer Chapel's scout hall for the annual, Spring Jumble Sale. They were not there for the bargains. As Billy had put it, they were there to recky the joint. He wanted to study the layout of the grey Victorian pile. Somewhere deep in its stony bowels the furniture sale would take place. The old lady's sideboard, with its secret drawer, was stored down there with lots of other old furniture waiting for the auctioneer's hammer. If Billy was going to check out the secret drawer, he must do it before that sale.
Young Doctor Hadfield spotted Yvonne, and ever anxious to hear news of her older sister, made a beeline for her. 'My word, you two look serious,' he said brightly, addressing Yvonne, before casting a sideways glance at Billy, still chewing the oatcake. After quickly assessing whether or not emergency thoracic surgery was called for, and deciding against it, the doctor went on lamely, 'What are you going to buy?'
The power of speech returned to Billy as he swallowed the last of the oatcake. Ignoring the doctor's question he put his own instead, 'Excuse me, but did you see the report in The Star about the old Star Woman? What do you think of it all?'
'Ah ha, so you two are still the detectives on the case. I've heard of your investigations. My old boss is a fan too, and obviously you're not giving up despite the coroner's report?'
'Of course not. She was murdered,' Billy said with certainty.
The young man looked shocked and cast his gaze nervously around the room. 'Shush, you need to be careful what you say,' he warned.
'I can prove it,' Billy told him.
'Let's go over there,' the doctor suggested, indicating to a quiet corner, away from the hectic bustle around stalls piled high with children's clothing, knick-knacks and shoes. 'What's your name?' he asked Billy, evidently preparing for a serious chat.
'Billy Perks, sir.'
'Well Billy Perks, it's all right saying such things to me, but some people could be very upset by them.' He looked at Billy's face, studying his reaction as if reading a map. 'The old lady fell and hurt herself,' he went on. 'It's not a mystery. Old people fall all the time. It's quite common. They fall and break bones. Old bones are brittle you see. Sometimes if a neighbour doesn't find them soon enough, they get pneumonia and …'
'She didn't have pneumonia,' Yvonne put in.
'She didn't fall either,' said Billy. 'And she wasn't all that old – about sixty or so. She just looked old and yellowish.'
'No, she was bashed on her head,' Yvonne insisted sharply.
Doctor Hadfield sighed with frustration. 'The body was seen by the police and my boss, an eminent doctor,' he argued gently. 'They saw the evidence for themselves, and didn't find cause to doubt it. If what had happened was so obvious to them, why can't you accept it?'
'Because of t'sneck nail,' growled Billy, grimly delivering his trump card.
The doctor gaped, as Billy told him his suspicions, and of their findings at the old lady's house. Yvonne fished under her cardigan and pulled out her notes, occasionally selecting a quote to season Billy's gabbled account.
When they had finished, Doctor Hadfield smiled emitting a theatrical gasp of astonishment. 'Wow! I should hate to get on the wrong side of you two. You're a formidable team.' With that, he suddenly started back towards the frenzied hubbub of the main sales area. Children's coats and skirts, babies' bootees and leggings were trading briskly. The doctor stopped at one of the stalls and purchased a trilby hat for tuppence.
'Here,' he said cheerfully, returning to the pair. He plopped the hat on Billy's head and adjusted it to a jaunty tilt. 'A good detective needs a good hat. Just like Dick Barton.'
Surprised, Billy was nonetheless impressed, and nodded his trilby covered head appreciatively.
*
Outside in the silence behind the Boy Scouts' hall and the Ebenezer chapel, a narrow gap, choked with nettles and rusting old bits of church equipment, had originally provided access to a flight of stone steps down to a now redundant boiler room. It was an oppressive, forgotten canyon between towering ashlars, just wide enough for a man to pass.
Posting Yvonne on guard, Billy picked his way through the detritus to a rusting gate at the top of the steps and peered down to the boiler cellar door. Though chained and padlocked the door appeared weak with rot. He would have no problem getting through that, he told himself, and the padlocked gate would be easy to climb. All he needed was a torch and a tyre lever, and he could be inside in a jiffy. Glancing back to the chapel yard he checked on Yvonne. She waved, signalling the all clear.
The plan was to creep out of his house when his parents were sleeping, and get into the saleroom by squeezing through a heating duct that he knew led from the old boiler room to bronzed grilles in the chapel's panelled walls. He was sure there would be enough room for him to squeeze through. He'd seen the void behind one of the grilles some years earlier when he'd sat beside one at a Wolf Cubs' non-denominational harvest festival service. He was confident the grilles could be forced open from the back. There were no longer hot water pipes in the ducts, only an infamous draft carrying the squabbling calls of jackdaws and the soporific cooing of pigeons to a congregation, invariably struggling to stay awake. Once inside the chapel, he hoped it would be a simple matter to get down to the basement hall below it. All he would have to do then was find the sideboard and its secret drawer.
'Quick! Come out,' Yvonne called in a hoarse whisper. 'Somebody's coming.'
Billy adjusted the brim of his trilby hat, tugged the collar of an imaginary trench coat, and strode back to his trusty assistant.
'Well, will it be OK?' asked Yvonne, deciding not to ask why he was walking as though his shoulders had seized up.
'Sure thing doll,' said Billy, blowing invisible smoke from an invisible cigarette.
'What's up with you?'
'Nothing, Blue Eyes.'
'They're brown. Dope.'
*
In Bunny Parfitt's garden shed, Yvonne held her skirt to her legs as though avoiding demonic talons. Obscure mechanical projects, mostly unfinished, and bits of old disassembled machinery clung to the shed's creaking walls. Everything she saw seemed to be smothered in grease.
Eleven-year-old Bunny Parfitt was an eccentric mechanical genius. His reputation locally as a mad scientist almost eclipsed that of Doctor Frankenstein. Bunny had a cold, but then it seemed he always did. H
is nose dripped incessantly. His eyes seeped behind bottle-bottom lenses, and he sniffed with gruesome regularity.
'You deed to find adoother hair to match with this wod. It's dot evidence otherwise,' he said nasally. He peered again through his microscope at the fragment of blood stained silver, which Yvonne had carefully placed beneath the lens. 'I don't doh owt about blood, but they'll be able to tell thee what group it is.'
'What is it?' asked Billy.
'I just told thee, I don't doh.'
'No, what's the silver thing? Can you see what it's off of?'
'It's a bit.'
'A can see that you daft chuff, but what's it a bit of?'
'A bit,' sniggered Bunny, evidently enjoying a private joke.
'Are tha balmy or what?' cried Billy.
'He means from a horse's bridle,' Yvonne intervened uncertainly. 'Don't you?'
Disappointment flitted across Bunny's face as the prospect of teasing Billy some more evaporated with Yvonne's explanation. 'Well it's ever so small, but that's what it reminds me of. Maybe it's off a little statue of a horse,' he said. 'I'd guess at a military horse. It looks like an Army reversible bit.'
Billy shot Yvonne a disbelieving frown. 'Oh he's making it up now,' he accused. 'He's having us on. He can't tell all that from a nowty bit of silver like that.'
'Here have a look, see for thee sen,' Bunny challenged, wiping the eyepiece with his thumb and moving back a step. 'Put thee eye there and look down it.'
Billy stepped forward and spied through the brass ring down into a sparkling world of unexpected clarity and colour. 'Chuffin eck!' he breathed. 'Tha can see everything. Th'art reight an' all, it could be a horse's cheek. You can see its mouth and everything.' Yvonne and Bunny watched in silence as Billy peered excitedly into the microscopic world on the little glass slide. 'Eerrgh! Is that skin?' His head popped up from the eyepiece. 'You can see her skin on it and scabby blood and everything.'
Yvonne started giggling. Billy ignored her and returned to his inspection. 'We need to make sure we don't spoil this. It's good evidence. This really could be really, really, really important really.' His face popped into view again. 'I want it bottled up again and put away safe. When the time comes, we'll need the coppers to have a good look at it.'