A Woman Unknown Page 0,70

from the jar.

The chill came instantly as I opened the door to the cellar. I felt a ripple of horror as I descended. What if Fitzpatrick had killed her, and all this concern was an elaborate charade? Yet the cellar had no smell of blood or fear, only coal, and damp. Everything was in order – the cold press, the dolly tub, brooms and mops. There was an overnight bag, an unlocked trunk that contained a valise, but no shopping basket.

When I came back upstairs, I said, ‘No shopping basket. So it looks as if she took her few things and carried them in a basket. She probably wore the coat.’

‘Where has she gone?’ he wailed.

‘That’s what we shall find out. Think carefully. Tell me everywhere she has been where she may go again: friends, family, anywhere at all.’

He closed his eyes. ‘That’s just it. I know only what she tells me. Mostly, she goes back to where she came from, to those streets around the Bank, Cotton Street, where her mother lived, Flax Street, where she has a school friend who worked with her at the shoe factory before we married, Holdforth Square where she visits Eddie’s mother, so she says.’

‘Who else lives in the house on Cotton Street, Deirdre’s mother’s house?’

‘The aunts, Mary and Brenda. They don’t like me any more than her mother did.’

I began to suspect plots. Perhaps Deirdre’s brother would take her back to America. His having come to me with Fitzpatrick and Deirdre’s lovesick childhood sweetheart Eddie was nothing but a smokescreen. ‘Anywhere else you can think of? Somewhere she may have been happy and wanted to return to.’

‘We had our honeymoon in Scarborough. She loved the sea.’

‘Where did you stay?’

‘In a boarding house on the front, with a Mrs Redhead. Very smart woman.’

I would pass on that information, but the fact that Deirdre was still in this area three days after she had been last seen, made me think she was closer to home. ‘I’ll make enquiries,’ I said lamely, ‘but I wonder if she is somewhere nearby, with some friend in Kirkstall she hasn’t mentioned, or an old school friend or a former workmate, someone who would keep her confidence.’

‘If she was on the Bank people would know. You can’t keep secrets there.’ He suddenly became animated. ‘You’ve hit it. She must go to Cotton Street tonight.’

‘Why tonight?’

‘It’s her mother’s wake. Deirdre can’t not be there. My brother-in-law made the funeral arrangements. Her mother has been brought home, and later she’ll be taken into church. The Requiem Mass will be tomorrow.’

‘Then we should go. You’re right.’

His animation fled as quickly as it had come. ‘Her people don’t like me. They won’t want me there.’

‘But you’re the son-in-law. You were getting on famously with Deirdre. You went with her to the nursing home.’

‘How can I get there, like this?’

‘Get your coat, Mr Fitzpatrick. We’re going to the wake.’

He looked at me in alarm, as though I had made a lewd suggestion. ‘How will I explain you? My wife gone, and me turning up with a strange woman?’

‘Tell the truth. Introduce me. Say I am helping you to look for Deirdre.’

‘You’re right. I want her to know … if she is there … or even if she isn’t and somebody knows where she is, they can tittle-tattle back to her that I came.’ Fitzpatrick struggled to his feet. He nodded at the jacket on the hook behind the door. ‘Do you mind?’

I helped him on with his jacket.

He balanced on one crutch, switching it from left to right. ‘You’re right. What do appearances matter where Deirdre is concerned? I can’t miss the wake. And I mustn’t go empty-handed, being the son-in-law.’

‘I have never been to a wake, Mr Fitzpatrick. You must tell me what to expect.’

‘I must buy a bottle of whisky. You’ll stop at the outsales?’

‘Yes of course.’

‘Pass me that tin will you?’ He nodded at a toffee tin on the mantelpiece.

When I placed it on the table, he took off the lid and tipped out coins, including a guinea. He began to shake. His grey face crumpled.

‘She hasn’t taken a penny. She’s been back but she’s left pay for the milk, coal, insurance, housekeeping. How will she manage?’

‘Never mind that now. Is there enough for what you need?’

Given I was the one with two good feet who must buy the whisky, I stopped at the Lloyds Arms where I am known, and would not be stared at.

I gave Fitzpatrick the bottle to