Midnight on Lime Street by Ruth Hamilton Read Free Book Online

felt stuck to the floor. Number One’s mother had identified
the body and had said that her girl had always worn her gold cross and chain. Did Laura know that? Had she read it in the paper or seen it on the news? She doesn’t often take notice of
current affairs.
    ‘Where did you get it?’ she asked, and she didn’t sound like herself; her voice was cold, and she separated all her words as if talking to a two-year-old.
    My brain kicked in – all my extremities had felt frozen stiff until that moment.
    ‘Second-hand shop,’ I said. ‘I was trying to find a nice box so I could give it to you for your birthday.’
    She held it up high and looked at it. ‘It isn’t a crucifix,’ she said. ‘It’s just a cross with no Christ on it.’
    ‘I know, Laura, but it’s real gold and very pretty.’
    She didn’t seem angry any more. Perhaps she’d been wondering whether I had a girlfriend, and worrying that this thing might have belonged to the other woman. There’s never been
anyone but Laura for me. I hated seeing that thing in my sweet wife’s hardworking hands, because the object is contaminated by a whore.
    ‘It’s a lovely thought, Neil. Here, put it away till you find a box, and I’ll forget I ever saw it. You’d better get the first owner’s initials taken off,
though.’
    I felt my pores opening. Every hair on my body stood to full attention as if on guard. Initials? Jesus, help me. I never noticed them.
    So I took it from Laura. Yes, there the initials were on the plain side where there was no diamond cutting,
JD 21 today.
Number One was Jean Davenport – her name was in the
Echo
.
    What must I do now? I wondered. If I took it to a jeweller to have the initials removed, he and others in the trade might have been warned by police to look out for it. Perhaps I could rub the
initials off in the shed. Maybe I should pretend to lose this one and buy another. If I kept it, my wife, my lovely wife, would be wearing the embellishment of a street walker.
    After breakfast, I went up to bed. My mind was all over the place. I could buy her a gold crucifix with a Christ figure and say I’d sold the ‘second-hand’ one, but if I put it
on the next body, Laura might read the paper for once; she could well find out that Number One’s jewellery had been left on Number Two. My plan’s going wrong. Jesus gave me a clue by
bringing Judas and his joined-up thirty pieces, didn’t He? What should I do? Does anyone have the answer? Because my brain seems to be going on strike.
    I prayed. I asked for Jesus to intercede and guide me through this . . . this mess. And He did! Well, He tried. From nowhere on the earthly plane, a scene entered my head. The cross was there on
a desk or a table, and I saw myself prising Jesus off another cross, maybe one attached to a rosary, and fastening the figure over the initials on Number One’s cross. But that isn’t the
pretty side, is it? The engraving’s on the flat side.
    And I heard a voice saying a name. It mentioned Jimmy Nuttall. Jimmy has a high-class repository in town, all mother-of-pearl-backed prayer books and New Testaments, leather-bound hymnals and
missals, expensive rosaries. He sells First Communion clothes for girls and boys, Extreme Unction sets with everything a priest might need aside from the oils. It’s a posh place, and not
cheap. Yes, I would go there.
    ‘Thank you, Jesus,’ I told Him. If you pray, He never lets you down. Jimmy might have a gold rosary, and all rosaries bear Christ figures . . . But Laura would still be wearing the
whore’s cross with the figure from the rosary on the plain side. I was getting confused. If I bought a new chain – no. Jesus, thanks for trying to help, but I’m going to stick
with the plan. But no again. If Jean Davenport’s cross turns up on the old biddy’s corpse, it will all blow up once more, and Laura might notice and remember Jean Davenport’s
initials. I have to get rid of this one and buy Laura