The Lily-White Boys Read online

  THE LILY-WHITE

  BOYS

  Anthea Fraser

  CHIVERS

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available

  This eBook published by AudioGO Ltd, Bath, 2012.

  Published by arrangement with the Author

  Epub ISBN 9781471310270

  Copyright © 1991 by Anthea Fraser

  First published as I’ll Sing You Two-O

  The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  All rights reserved

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental

  Jacket illustration © iStockphoto.com

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  I’ll sing you one-O!

  (Chorus) Green grow the rushes-O!

  What is your one-O?

  One is one and all alone and evermore shall be so.

  I’ll sing you two-O!

  (Chorus) Green grow the rushes-O!

  What are your two-O?

  Two, two, the lily-white Boys, clothed all in green-O,

  (Chorus) One is one and all alone and evermore shall be

  I’ll sing you three-O!

  (Chorus) Green grow the rushes-O!

  What are your three-O?

  Three, three the Rivals,

  (Chorus) Two, two, the lily-white Boys, clothed all in green-O,

  One is one and all alone and evermore shall be so.

  Four for the Gospel-makers.

  Five for the Symbols at your door.

  Six for the six proud Walkers.

  Seven for the seven Stars in the sky.

  Eight for the April Rainers.

  Nine for the nine bright Shiners.

  Ten for the ten Commandments.

  Eleven for the Eleven that went up to Heaven.

  Twelve for the twelve Apostles.

  PROLOGUE

  It was a clear night with the moon almost full. They hadn’t spoken for some time and, though a reggae band throbbed insistently on the cassette, neither was aware of it until it ended. Then, roused by the sudden silence, Rob said gloatingly, ‘Stroke of luck, that.’

  ‘Magic!’ Gary agreed. They’d come across it by chance, a large, isolated house, whose open garage door shouted aloud that no one was home. And the alarm hadn’t delayed them for a moment. Pathetic! Result, they’d nabbed some good stuff, which Jack would be able to shift for them. All in all, a fitting way to end a day in which United beat Steeple Bayliss four-nil. Last match of the season, too. He gave a sigh of pure contentment.

  The country road stretched emptily before and behind them, a glowing ribbon in the moonlight across which occasional shadows of trees lay like giant pencils. Then, as a sound impinged on his musings, he frowned, glancing in the wing mirror. ‘Not being followed, are we?’ he asked sharply.

  Rob wound down his window and, sticking his head out, looked back the way they’d come. ‘Nothing in sight.’

  But even as he withdrew his head he caught the sound which had alerted his twin, a low, throbbing hum growing steadily louder.

  ‘Plane,’ Gary said in relief. ‘Pretty low, by the sound of it.’

  ‘Not half!’ Rob pointed suddenly to their right, where a dark shape was silhouetted against the sky, seemingly only feet above the treetops. ‘He’s coming down – and without landing lights, at that. No airfield round here, is there?’

  ‘Not that I’ve heard of.’ Gary pulled the van off the road into the shelter of the trees. ‘Let’s have a shufty.’

  The night air was chill after the warm van, and reverberating with the sound of the plane. Bent almost double, they set off at a loping run through the trees, dodging the straggling branches which snatched at their clothes. The note of the engine had changed and ahead of them a powerful torch flashed once, then twice in quick succession.

  Instinctively dropping to their stomachs, the twins inched silently forward until the trees thinned and the flat grassland beyond became visible. And with perfect timing, the plane taxied slowly into sight and came to a standstill.

  As its engine died a car, which had been parked out of sight to their left, backed rapidly towards it, braked, and disgorged two figures. One opened the hatchback while the other ran towards the plane, reaching it as the pilot slid back his own door.

  For several minutes the three men worked quickly and efficiently, the pilot handing down several dozen packages which were swiftly transferred to the open maw of the car. Hardly any words were spoken, and none reached the watchers under the trees.

  In a surprisingly short time the transfer was complete. Doors were closed, the pilot slewed the plane round and set off again along the makeshift runway. As the roar of its going filled the night, the two men walked round to the front of the car. Gary was about to ease himself up for a better look when, with a muttered word to his companion, one of them veered suddenly towards the trees where they lay hidden.

  Convinced they’d been spotted, the twins pressed themselves into the ground, pulling their anoraks over their heads and waiting with pounding hearts for retribution to fall. But after an agonizing pause the only sound that reached them was a soft pattering on the shrubs to their left. Limp with relief, they exchanged grins. The man had merely taken the chance to relieve himself.

  As he finished and turned away, Gary cautiously raised his head and had a brief but clear view of the man’s profile in the moonlight. The next moment he was back in the car, which promptly started up and bumped away over the uneven ground. By the time the twins emerged from their cover, all that remained was the imprint of tyres and two cigarette-ends ground into the grass.

  Gary stirred one of them thoughtfully with his shoe. ‘I’ve seen that bloke before,’ he said. ‘Don’t know his name but I’m sure he’s a customer.’

  Rob pursed his lips in a whistle. ‘Lucky he didn’t see us, then. What do you reckon was going on?’

  ‘Something they don’t want Customs to know about. Which, bro, when I track down who the bloke is, could turn out to be a nice little earner.’ He grinned, putting his hand on his brother’s shoulder as they turned back into the trees. ‘Didn’t I say it was our lucky night?’

  The White twins were not, after all, the only ones to notice the plane. By the following Monday, Shillingham police had received several complaints about low-flying aircraft and a farmer had reported the churning up of one of his fields as if by heavy wheels.

  Nor was it the first time such complaints had been received. Three or four times a year low-flying aircraft were reported over various parts of Broadshire which neither the police nor Air Traffic Control had been able to account for.

  John Baker, a uniformed inspector, was grumbling about it over coffee in the canteen. The last thing he needed on a Monday morning was a recurrent problem like this. ‘God knows what they’re up to; every time it happens we send someone to investigate, and every time we come up with damn-all. Short of shooting the things down, what are we supposed to do about it?’

  ‘And they’re always in different areas?’ asked DI Crombie, taking another biscuit.

  ‘Yep. Otherwise, when the moon’s right, we could post watchers.’

  ‘If they’re actually la
nding, odds are you can take your pick between illegal immigration and drug-smuggling.’

  ‘Quite, which is why Customs & Excise are on our backs.’

  ‘Whereabouts was it this time?’

  ‘On a deserted stretch between SB and Marlton. Open countryside, screened from the road by trees. Ideal situation, really.’

  A couple of hours later, as Crombie was checking on a recent break-in, Baker’s words suddenly came back to him. He glanced at DCI Webb, buried in his paperwork.

  ‘This break-in on Saturday –’ he began.

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘When reporting it, the owners also mentioned a low-flying aircraft. From what John Baker was saying, it sounds as if it landed in the same area.’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘You don’t think there’s any connection?’

  At that, Webb did look up. ‘Oh come on, Alan! You’re suggesting the villains laid on a private plane to remove the loot? The day that happens, I’m chucking this job in!’

  Crombie grinned reluctantly. ‘OK, I suppose you’re right. At least the aircraft isn’t our headache. Uniform are welcome to it.’

  Webb nodded and returned to his papers.

  CHAPTER 1

  Monica Tovey, unmarried and with her fortieth birthday some years behind her, considered herself fortunate; as well she might, her life being comfortable, successful and brimful of interest. That it was also precious had never occurred to her. Until it came under threat.

  Not that she recognized the threat at first; it crept stealthily up on her one mild May night, moments after she’d laid aside her book, switched off the light and settled herself for sleep.

  Her mind still on the chapter she’d just finished, she was lying on the edge of sleep, drowsily watching the curtains moving in the night air. And it was then, through the open window, that she heard the sputtering sound of a car engine in trouble. The noise carried clearly in the stillness, coming steadily closer until, surely directly outside the house, it gave a final cough and choked into silence.

  Monica lay listening as the driver tried repeatedly to restart the car, his increasingly frustrated attempts resulting only in a strained rumble which each time died uselessly away. Curious, she swung her legs to the floor and walked to the window, drawing the curtain aside. Immediately outside and directly beneath the street lamp stood an extraordinarily shabby van. Its driver was now standing on the pavement looking helplessly about him.

  Out of petrol, no doubt. Idly, Monica wondered where the nearest all-night garage was. The one down the hill would be closed this time of night. The driver, possibly following the same line of thought, glanced at his watch. Then, drawn perhaps by the force of her gaze, he turned and stared directly up at her. Embarrassed to be caught watching, she drew hastily back, letting the curtain fall. A moment later she heard the sound of footsteps, and when cautiously she peered out again, the man had gone and the van stood alone and deserted under the street lamp. Not, Monica reflected, studying it, the kind of vehicle one expected to see in this neighbourhood. She hoped the owner’d soon remove it.

  The little drama over and the night breeze cool on her body, she returned to her warm bed and promptly fell asleep.

  Eight hours later, Monica woke slowly in a room now full of sunlight, and as always her first thought was to establish the day of the week. Each had a different shape to it, and until she’d moulded her thoughts to fit that which lay ahead she was oddly disoriented.

  Tuesday, she remembered now. And as the key word registered, her brain obligingly slipped into gear: the Gucci rep at ten, lunch with a new buyer, Court in the afternoon, dinner with the family.

  A tap on the door heralded her morning tea and she stretched luxuriously, ready for the day to begin. The housekeeper set down a tray and went to draw back the curtains. ‘Another lovely morning, Miss Tovey.’

  ‘So I see. Is there by any chance a van outside?’

  ‘Yes, there is – a shabby-looking thing. I wonder where it came from?’

  ‘It arrived huffing and puffing about midnight.’ She sat up and pulled the pillows behind her back. ‘Did my mother have a good night?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Tovey, she slept right through.’

  The new pills must be working, then; which, thank God, meant breakfast needn’t be devoted to discussing alternatives. In the last months she’d begun to dread the frequent sentences which began, ‘Darling, I know I’m a terrible nuisance, but –’

  Monica sighed, pouring out her tea. The fact was that Maude Tovey, a prettily helpless woman who’d been cosseted by her husband for fifty years, had, on his death a year ago, transferred her total dependence to her elder daughter. It was a burden which, though she loved her mother, Monica found difficulty in shouldering.

  She sipped the hot tea reflectively. A little support from Eloise would be welcome, but her sister, comfortably installed in her own home, was unwilling to interrupt her social round for less interesting duties. In any case, pandered to by a devoted husband and two sons, she was set to follow her mother’s example, affecting helplessness where Monica suspected it did not exist. Regular invitations to dinner, of which tonight’s was an example, eased her comfortably compliant conscience on the matter.

  Still, this was no time to brood on such things. Monica hastily finished her tea and went to run her bath.

  Thirty minutes later, crisply elegant in navy linen, she entered her mother’s room and bent to kiss her cheek, marvelling as she always did at its softness.

  ‘I hear you had a good night,’ she said bracingly.

  ‘Yes, thank you, dear. Such a relief.’

  ‘You didn’t hear the van, then? I was afraid it might wake you.’

  ‘What van was that?’

  ‘Oh, a disreputable old thing. It broke down outside in the middle of the night, and it’s still there.’

  ‘A tradesman’s van, do you mean?’

  ‘I suppose so, though there’s no name on the side; and unless it goes in for overnight deliveries I can’t think what it was doing out at that time. No doubt someone will arrive any minute with a can of petrol and drive it away.’

  She walked to the window where the small round table was already laid. This practice of breakfasting together, she at the window table, her mother in bed, had developed since her father’s death. And though it meant forfeiting her precious fifteen minutes downstairs with the paper, Monica didn’t grudge her mother this short interval before she left for work.

  Ignoring the van, she stood for a moment gazing at the park across the road, where early-morning walkers were already exercising their dogs. It was early summer, trees and shrubs were blossoming, and she felt an instinctive lifting of her spirits. Life was good indeed.

  Preceded by a tap on the door, Mrs Bedale bustled in with the breakfast tray: grapefruit, coffee and toast for Monica; tea, bread and butter and soft-boiled egg for her mother.

  ‘What have you on today?’ Monica inquired, extracting a segment of grapefruit.

  ‘Quite a full programme as usual,’ Maude said complacently. ‘Coffee at Florence’s, bridge at the club this afternoon, and, of course, dinner with Eloise.’

  A day as busy as her own, even if more sociably inclined. Her mother’s full engagement diary had been a lifesaver over the past year.

  The sound of a passing car made Monica glance outside, and she smiled. ‘Gerry Ridingdale’s just passed the van in his Rover. I could see the curl of his lip from here!’ She folded her napkin. ‘I must be on my way.’

  ‘Will George be there this evening?’

  ‘Undoubtedly.’ Cutting off further comment, Monica kissed her mother goodbye and hurried from the room.

  Of course he would, she thought, fishing the car keys from her handbag as she ran down the stairs. Eloise punctiliously included George in her invitations, as though they were already married. Which, Monica allowed, letting herself out of the rear hall door, was fair enough. It had been understood for years that when – or, she sometimes thou
ght wryly, if – George’s mother died, they would come together. So why did she resent rather than appreciate her sister’s thoughtfulness? Perhaps, she acknowledged with sudden searing honesty, because George suffered in comparison with Justin. Which was a line of thought it was better not to pursue.

  The gardens behind the Georgian terrace were long and fairly narrow, but skilful landscaping had given the Toveys’ an illusion of space. Dew still lay heavy on the grass and Monica kept to the paving stones as she walked to the wooden door in the high brick wall. Behind it lay the converted mews which served the houses as garages, and by the time she let herself through the door and locked it behind her, she had disciplined her thoughts away from the family and was already anticipating the working day ahead.

  ‘Waste of good food, that’s what I call it,’ Doris Trubshaw grumbled as she scraped the dried-up food off the plates into the bin. ‘And they needn’t think I’ll knock anything off ’cos they weren’t here to eat it, neither.’

  ‘I can’t think where they’ve got to,’ her husband said anxiously. ‘They never said nothing about staying out all night.’ It was he who, when their lodgers hadn’t appeared for breakfast, had gone to their room to find it empty and the beds unslept in.

  ‘Probably went to a party or something.’

  ‘Even so, they should be back by now.’

  ‘All-night parties end with breakfast, so I’ve heard,’ Doris said disapprovingly. ‘Not that I hold with that kind of thing. Asking for trouble, if you ask me.’

  ‘Well, I suppose you’re only young once.’

  His wife pursed her lips and did not reply. Though she accepted Sid’s soft spot for the boys, which came of having none of their own, she didn’t altogether trust her lodgers. There had been times when, while dusting their room, she’d noticed bulky newspaper parcels hidden under the beds. And once, when her Hoover nudged not altogether accidentally against one, she’d caught the gleam of silver.

  Well, she wasn’t one to ask questions and it was no business of hers. Nor, in view of his liking for the twins, had she mentioned it to Sid. Nevertheless, she was guarded in her dealings with the pair and determinedly strove to keep things on a business footing.