Maurice Procter - Two men in twenty

There was something suspiciously wrong about them, that was all Dorrie knew. She watched. She could see part of a face with two eyes which stared at the butcher's shop as if it were on fire. The owner of the face did not seem to be talking, and from the look of her she did not seem to be listening. She did not even look at the woman beside her.

Presently this other woman moved slightly to put her weight on the other foot, and Dorrie saw the full face of the one who stared. She recognized P.W. Dale as instantly and surely as she herself had been recognized.

Though she was pierced by fear, Dorrie remained cool. The guide to subsequent action, the first thing she had to decide, was whether or not that policewoman could see her. The walls of the shop were of shining white tiles, a revealing background. But the shop window was not high, and furthermore the butcher had put down the shade to keep the sun off the meat on display. The interior of the shop was shady really, and that girl across there was wrinkling her eyes in sunshine. Dorrie realized that in any case she would have to act on the assumption that she had been seen to enter the shop, but could not now be seen. She moved further back into the shop, on the pretence of looking at some platters of sausages on a side counter.

She tried to remember all that she had intended to buy. It would have to be something like her usual week-end order, because she could not allow the butcher to think that she was in haste. When it was her turn to be served she stated her wants calmly, and she looked at several big joints of beef before she chose one. This delay was agony. She wanted to be out of there, and away. But apparently her face showed none of her feelings. The butcher was respectful. Hers was a large order; the big joint, five pounds of pork sausages, five pounds of best steak, some lamb cutlets.

When she had paid for her meat, while she was waiting for her change, Dorrie looked round the shop, as if she had not looked round before. There was a door leading to the rear of the premises.

With her change in her purse, and her purchases in her basket, she hesitated. She looked embarrassed because she was embarrassed. 'Excuse me,' she said. 'Do you mind if I go out by the back door? There's a woman out there I don't want to meet, and she saw me come in here. She'll keep me talking for hours, and I've no time to spare this morning.'

The butcher was sympathetic. He also was occasionally bothered by women who wanted to talk when he was busy. He came round the counter smiling. 'This way,' he said, himself going towards the door at the rear.

He let her out into a backyard, and she heard a bolt thud into place when he had closed the back door. This was the moment of danger. If that big blonde had been able to see her, she would now be haring round the end of this block of shops as fast as she could go, and her friend with her.

She hurried along a back street, and round the end of the block which was furthest away from the policewomen. She wanted to be running, but she also wanted to know where those women were. At the end of the block, right on the corner, she stopped and put down her basket and pretended to adjust one of her stockings. This action enabled her to peep round the corner without seeming to be peeping. She could see the two women still standing there, two hundred yards away. A lorry passed carrying a high load of baled cotton pieces. It would cover her from the view of those women for some time. She moved into the throng of people and hurried away towards Grange Gardens. She did not have far to go.

She arrived home breathless, giving way a little to hysteria now, but she had taken care to see that she was not followed. She burst into the house and demanded of Cain: 'Now will you go back to London? Two damned policewomen looking for me this time. Watching the shops in the main street.'

Cain was startled. 'Here in Mossbank?'

'Not a quarter of a mile from here. It was that blonde who spotted me before, with another one. They must know I live somewhere around here.'

'You didn't do as good a job of shaking off that zombie as you thought. Are you sure you weren't followed home just now?'

'Yes, I'm sure. I was in the butcher's and he let me out by the back door. They were watching the front.'

'They saw you go in?'

'They must have. That blonde article was staring at the butcher's window as if it was the only shop in the street.'

Cain sat in thought, about women. They were funny creatures, he knew. Dorrie was homesick for London. She wanted to get back into her own home. Women could be very underhand when they wanted something badly. He had never known Dorrie be like that, but then he had never taken Dorrie out of her own home before, never taken her out of London. So, was the second zombie scare just a gag to frighten him out of Granchester?

'You're sure you didn't dream it all?' he asked drily.

She looked at him. 'I didn't dream it.'

He nodded. She had him, anyway. He didn't dare take the risk of disbelieving her story. So, assuming that he believed her, what then? Now the police knew that she lived in Mossbank. They would really get busy. The place would be crawling with plainclotheswomen and plainclothesmen. They would be going from door to door again. Sooner or later some Pole or Jamaican would happen to mention the people at No. 11 Grange Gardens. The comings and goings of five men and two women would not have gone entirely unnoticed.

Dorrie had put her basket down beside the kitchen door. Cain went and picked it up, and put it on the kitchen table. It was heavy. He opened one of the parcels. 'Is this all meat?' he asked.

She nodded.

'All from that shop where you were spotted?'

Again she nodded.

He frowned. All that meat! The police would know by now that Dorrie had bought enough to feed a platoon of guardsmen. That would make them doubly certain of her connection with a mob. They would swing into action at once. They would be moving into the district already.

The thought of that was enough to upset any criminal with a normal instinct of self-preservation. All the same, Cain made up his mind that he was not going to be frightened away from Granchester. He would go when he was ready, and that was not yet. He was thankful now for France's suggestion that the house in Naylor Street would make an alternative base. Now, one of them was furnished after a fashion.

'Go pack your bags,' he said to Dorrie. 'We're getting out of this dump right now.'

'Back to London?' she asked.

'I don't know. Not today, at any rate. Today we're moving to Naylor Street.'

He went into the front room, where Jolly, Husker, Coggan, and Flo were rolling poker dice. Flo seemed to be winning. Her face was flushed and her eyes bright. She looked very pretty.

'All right, pack it up,' he said, and at once the girl looked sullen. He moved part of the way round the table and stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders. 'Don't argue, kid,' he said. 'There's no time. Your sister's been spotted again. We'd better be out of here within the hour. Every man go pack his bags. Where's the Gent?'

'Upstairs, I think,' Husker said.

'Thank God for that. He could easy have been gone to the pictures. Our luck's holding.'

Cain went and called France, and told him what had happened.

'Yes, we'd better move right away,' France agreed. 'And I'm going to get a pillow case or something and do out my room, and everywhere else where I might have left my dabs.'

'We'd all better do that,' Cain said. 'When all the cases have been packed I'll load 'em in the car and take 'em to Naylor Street. I'll take Dorrie, too. Everyone else will go on the bus, and no two together.'

* * * * *

Five minutes after Dorrie had departed by the butcher's back door, P.W. Seymour said for the third time: 'Don't stare so. Act natural and reckon to be talking. You can't miss seeing her when she comes out.'