The Locksmith by Linda Calvey (reading in the dark .TXT) 📕

‘Oh, but Miss Murphy, it has everything to do with you,’ Mr Smithers said. ‘You are the main beneficiary of the Beaumonts’ estate. Didn’t you know? As of now, you are a very rich young woman indeed.’

The words hung in the air between them. Ruby frowned. ‘Say that again,’ she asked, weakly.

‘When you walk out of this room you will be a millionairess. There’s a small sum of £10,000 which has been set aside for a lady who used to clean the Beaumont residence, and some personal effects, some watches and a ring for your brother Bobby Murphy, but apart from that, everything is yours.’

Ruby didn’t recall leaving the office, or making her way home. She’d phoned George’s babysitter and said she’d been held up and would be a couple more hours. She needed time to think, to make sense of it all. She dropped her keys and bag upon entering her front door, kicked off her high heels and padded upstairs to lie on her bed. Her best friends were dead, her brother was weeks away from his trial, and now she was a millionaire.

This means we can fight for Bobby. We can get a barrister like Rupert Smithers, and we can fight like dogs to get ya out of a jail sentence. There was at least this one glimmer of hope.

The money was a bizarre twist. She had enough money now to never work again. She could afford the most expensive lawyers for Bobby. She could buy anything she wanted – yet the only thing she desired, beyond Bobby walking free, was to see her beloved friends again, and that was never going to happen. She lay there, in complete shock at this latest news. Suddenly, the phone rang. It was Archie. She’d tried calling him after she’d discovered the news and left a message, brief and to the point. ‘Charlie and Maureen are dead. Bobby’s goin’ to prison. Please come.’

‘I’ve landed at Gatwick. I’m on my way to ya.’ Archie’s voice was low, his tone gentle. How she’d missed him while he’d been in Spain on business.

‘Thank you, that means a lot to me, Archie,’ she said as the tears came. His tenderness had opened the dam, and he waited until she’d finished crying before he spoke again.

‘Listen, Ruby. I’m on my way. I’ll always be there for ya and there’s a reason for that . . . I’ve fallen in love with ya.’ She stopped crying and let those words sink in. She searched her own feelings and saw how drawn she was to him, yet how scared she was of being with someone, of being let down, of being vulnerable.

‘I know you ’ave, Archie,’ she sniffed, ‘I know . . .’

He put the phone down and Ruby sat, thinking. She saw how, at heart, she was still just a little girl inside. All the people she’d loved had left her; Grandad Jim, Mum and Dad, and now Charlie and Maureen. She’d experienced loss after loss. Perhaps that was what made loving another so hard? Too scared to lose Archie, she’d kept him at arm’s length. But no more. Something had changed. She realised she was falling for him too, yet even then, she couldn’t bring herself to say the right words back to him.

An hour later and Archie was standing on her doorstep. He pulled her into his arms and kissed the tears from her face.

‘You’ll never be alone again, I promise ya Ruby,’ he said, his face buried in her hair. She wept again, and he held her. He stroked the tangles away from her face when she’d finished crying and bent his head to kiss her full on the lips. Her heart hammered and she could do nothing but respond to his embrace. It felt so natural, like they’d always been lovers.

‘Where’s George?’ he asked eventually, pulling away from her.

‘Star Lane. Our old neighbours. Couldn’t think where else to take him at short notice,’ Ruby replied.

‘Right, I’ll go and pick him up. You ’ave a bath, make yourself feel a bit better. I’ll order in food. We’ll get through this,’ he added, and she noticed he’d said ‘we’ not ‘you’. She watched him go. He was a dangerous man to love. He was a gangster. People in his trade, along with hers, were notorious for ending up banged up or dead. Could she bear to trust him, to love him? Deep down, she already knew the answer.

Cradling cups of hot sweet tea, Ruby and Archie talked after they’d eaten and George was fast asleep. Her thoughts had crystallised during her bath. Her manner was now completely changed; firm and decisive. The softness, the fragility had vanished, for now. She knew what she had to do. If she let Freddie off with this, her and George might never be safe. She had to ensure no one would ever think to mess with the Murphys again. This was business, and she’d sworn revenge of the worst kind against the weasel who’d set the tragic events in motion.

‘I want him dead.’ Her voice was soft, and so low Archie barely heard her.

He looked at her. He saw a woman disturbed by grief. ‘I know you’re grievin’ but d’you know what you’re sayin’? You really want me to kill Freddie for stitchin’ up Bobby?’

Ruby met his enquiring gaze. Her eyes were cold now, brilliant as gemstones. ‘Yes. I know exactly what I’m askin’. The deaths of Charlie and Maureen are on Freddie’s hands.

‘He grassed up my Bobby but, in doin’ so he took the people I loved. More than that, Archie,’ her voice was now almost a whisper, ‘I want you to make him suffer. I want him to know it was me who planned his murder, me who ordered it, me who showed no mercy. I want the whole of the underworld to know I’m a force to be reckoned with and I don’t take betrayal lightly.’

Archie looked away. If he was