A Step Too Far Read Online Free PDF Page B

saying someone other than Freda should have answered to the charge of black marketeering?’
         ‘That be exactly what I’m saying.’
         ‘Careful Alice!’ Becky cautioned. ‘You know what the posters say, “Walls Have Ears”. You never can tell who might be listening.’
         ‘Let ’em listen.’ Alice’s head lifted defiantly. ‘I’m only saying what is true, that idle fossack Jim Slater was behind it all and it were him said nothing while Freda went to gaol; what a boyfriend for any wench! I’d rather be courting a snake!’
         ‘Jim Slater was dealing on the black market?’
         ‘Was?’ Alice ignored Becky’s ‘Shhh.’ ‘He still is, the sticky fingered swine. God only knows how he gets what he gets, same as only God knows the reason he don’t get caught. I tell you, Kate, be wary of that one, keep clear of him if you want to stay this side of a prison wall.’
         ‘But Freda must have known what she was doing, she must have realised . . . I mean when things are not to be had in the shops  . . .’
         ‘Of course her realised them stockings had been pinched, what her didn’t reckon to was what Slater had slipped inside the packet sent along for Maudie Hopkins. Had it been only stockings the cops caught Freda with, then she wouldn’t have been no more than fined, but Maudie was after buyin’ ration books as well, and being in possession of them was what got Freda five years.’
         ‘Ration books?’ Katrin’s glance swung quickly to the girl keeping step beside her. ‘But how . . . where  . . . ?’
         ‘Where be easy.’ Alice broke off as the three of them negotiated several lorries flanked by the ever present flurry of bicycles, continuing only when they reached the other side of the busy road. ‘You must have read the newspaper of that break-in along of the Town Hall some months back, it reported several dozen food ration books and a number of clothing and petrol coupons had been stolen. I reckon Jim Slater were a party to that; as for how, even as a kid he could break in where castor oil couldn’t get and I don’t see him being any the less able now.’
         ‘But how can you be so sure it was Jim Slater put a ration book in with the stockings?’ Katrin queried. ‘It could have been there when he bought them.’
         Alice sniffed derogatively. ‘Pigs will fly before Slater buys anything he can get by swiping it from the back of a lorry, and it were not one ration book but two Freda were caught with. And I know it was him pinched them cos he offered a couple to my mother.’
         ‘Eeh Alice, he never did!’
         ‘Cross me heart and hope to die. Mother might have took ’em except her didn’t have the five quid asking price.’
         ‘I never had a deal of liking for Jim Slater and now I dislike him even more.’
         ‘You and me both Kate.’ Alice’s tone was scathing. ‘But one I detest even more than him is the one who tipped off the coppers about Freda.’
         They had reached the junction of Holyhead Road and Dudley Street, the point where Katrin must go her own way to Hollies Drive while the other two continued on, Becky to Queen Street and Alice to Cross Street. Who was it Alice referred to? Who had informed the police of Freda Evans’ black market dealings? The urge to have these questions answered had Katrin ask, ‘Do you know who that man is?’
         Alice Butler turned to look at the young woman and a trace of envy pricked warm in her throat. Kate Hawley could not be called a beauty, certainly she was not as pretty as Becky, but there was something about her that caught the eye. Not the hair, though that was thick and shone like polished copper. The figure then? No. She was no more shapely than Becky or Alice herself yet . . . the eyes. Alice halted in mid thought, it was Kate Hawley’s eyes. Looking into them now she saw something deep and almost hidden. Yet not quite: