he knew he had been wrong, but he couldn’t understand his daughter — his own daughter had raised her fist to him in front of the whole village. He stood still, shaking. What in God’s name had got into her? Suddenly he took off after the mob chasing the wagon.
Evelyne clung for dear life to the side of the wagon, terrified. Behind them* the mob followed, running down the mountain. Freedom yelled to Jesse to keep clear of the camp, lead the madmen away from their people, take to the main roads. Evelyne wept, begged to be let out, but Freedom ignored her and clambered up beside Jesse. The wagon rolled from side to side as the dirt track wound and curved. The running figures were now a good distance behind them. They passed the entrance to the campsite, and Jesse handed the reins to Freedom. He jumped down as Freedom whipped the horse faster, leading the mob away from the camp. They could see that the camp was already packed up, the caravans in line, set to move out. Alone in the back of the wagon, Evelyne was bruised and battered against the sides, and still she held on.
The sound of the wheels clattering on cobbles told Evelyne they had arrived in the village. The horse slowed its frantic pace and stopped.
‘Stop in the name of the law, now get down, hands above your head, come on, you vermin, do like we say, get down.’
The wagon’s flap was pulled open and a policeman who looked inside shouted that there was a woman on board. At the same time Evelyne heard a voice asking, ‘You the gyppo they call Freedom Stubbs?’
They were already putting the handcuffs on him by the time she stepped down. He made no effort to escape, did nothing to stop them handcuffing him, and said not one word. They hauled him roughly towards the police van, and even though he made no effort to evade arrest, one of the policemen brought his truncheon down hard on the back of his neck. He slumped forward, and they dragged him like an animal into the cage at the back of the van, locking and bolting it just in time as the mob appeared at the top of the village street.
The men and women were quieter now and, seeing the uniformed police encircling the van with truncheons at the ready, they kept their distance. ‘Keep on walking now, come along, get back to your homes, the show’s over. Come along now, keep walking, everybody keep walking.’
Slowly, they moved in groups past the police van, their interest directed first at the van, then at Evelyne. The women shot foul looks at her, then turned their faces away.
Hugh walked to his daughter’s side and laid his hand on her arm.
‘Don’t touch me, this is your doing, this is down to you; Hugh Jones, I’d have thought you had more sense.’
Lizzie-Ann passed by and heard Evelyne’s words, and muttered an abusive, bitter, ‘gyppo lover’. The other women nearby picked up the phrase, murmuring quietly but clearly as they passed the wagon, ‘gyppo woman, gyppo lover.’
Hugh stood still, head bowed, and Gladys whimpered and slunk to his side. The police van was cranked up and the engine chugged into life; then it headed for the police station with Evan Evans, flushed and apologetic, hurrying alongside.
Evelyne walked, head held high, back to Aldergrove Street. She knew they were all looking at her, talking about her, and she kept her eyes straight ahead. She was comforted by the thought that behind them all the caravans would be silently moving out, at least they had not torn the campsite apart.
Hugh wanted Gladys gone; he wanted to talk in private with Evelyne, but Gladys clung to his arm. He sat her down, then folded his arms, staring hard at Evelyne. She met his gaze head on, defiant.
‘Now, Evie, out with it, we have a right to know.’
In a quiet, dead voice, Evelyne told them the truth.
‘I was at a boxing match in Cardiff, remember, Da, the time I went by myself? I don’t want to go into the details of how I got there, but I went to a boxing fair. There was a riot, and I was leaving, but I had to go back inside the tent for my bag, I’d lost my handbag.’
Gladys stood up and demanded to know what on earth this had to do with Willie’s murder. Evelyne pushed her down and leaned over her.
‘Because when I went back I saw a poor gypsy girl being raped, not by one but by four lads. An’ they’d worse than raped her, they’d taken a bench leg to her.’
Gladys screeched at the top of her voice, ‘You sayin’ Willie had something to do with it?’
‘I saw him, he was on top of the girl… it was me that pulled him off by his hair, and I’d swear to it on the Bible, you want me to swear it on the Bible?’
Gladys shook her head, repeating over and over that she couldn’t believe it — not that boy, not her sister’s boy, he wouldn’t do a thing like that.
‘He did it, Gladys, he was one of those lads, the poor girl. I’ll never forget her face.’
Hugh brushed Evelyne aside. ‘That’s enough now, come on, Gladys, I’ll walk you home.’
He helped Gladys to the door, and just as he went out he gave Evelyne a heart-broken look. She couldn’t meet his eyes, the look was filled with so much hurt, why hadn’t she told him?
Freedom sat in the small village gaol that had only ever housed the poor lunatic who had bashed his mother’s head in. Evan Evans ponderously filled in all the forms. His prisoner was to be taken directly to Cardiff to answer the charges there. Evans had to endorse the charge-sheet accusing Freedom of the murder of Willie Thomas.
Doc Clock, very irate, appeared to report the theft of a golf fob watch. He was insistent, never mind the ruddy gypsy, his new gold fob watch had been stolen right off the chain he had just put it on. Evans took down all the particulars, and waited until the Doc left, before he tore up the description of the fob watch. ‘He’s not had a watch attached to that chain for more’n fifteen years. We should have a word with the Medical Board, he’s past it, the silly old fool.’
Mr Beshaley sat in Rawnie’s wagon. He swung his gold watch on its chain, fingered it and replaced it in the pocket of the checked waistcoat that matched his suit. He had used that watch to bribe people on several occasions, but he had always been able to steal it back. ‘Ye think he got himself away then, do ye?’
Jesse shrugged and put his feet up on the shelf, Freedom would be all right, he murmured. Mr Beshaley pursed his lips, what a wasted night it had been, all this way and for what, to be almost mobbed. He had never even got a chance to talk with Sir Charles Wheeler — maybe to get him interested in one of his other boxers.
Rawnie, with her skirts hitched up over her bare knees, smoked a hand-rolled cigarette clenched between her teeth. Perched up on the boards she held the reins loosely between her fingers, clucking for the horses to move on, then flicked a whip across their backs. She began to sing, low, husky, as if she had not a care in the world.
Mande went to poor theory, all around the stiggur sty,
Mush off to Mande, I takes off my chuvvel,
I dels him in the per,
So ope me duvvel dancin Mande cours well.
Inside Rawnie’s caravan Jesse was held by her husky voice, he smiled at Beshaley, and lowered his thick, black eyelashes.
‘Freedom always was a loser, tonight he proved it.’ He joined in singing with Rawnie, their voices as soft as each other’s. Beshaley shivered, they seemed so close, these two, and he felt like an intruder. He couldn’t wait to get to Swansea. The pair of them unnerved him.
Hugh climbed the stairs, heavy-hearted. He could see the gaslight beneath Evelyne’s door. Before he reached the door she opened it and stood, hands on hips. ‘Well, what have you heard?’
Hugh shifted his weight and mumbled that they’d taken the gypsy to Cardiff, and the word was he’d be hanged.
‘What if I was to tell you he didn’t do the killings, none of them, it wasn’t him?’
Hugh said that was for the courts to decide. Evan Evans was in the pub telling everyone that the gypsy had said not one word, which in Evans’ eyes proved that he was guilty.
‘If what you said about Willie is true, then so help me God I’m for the gel, but that’s no reason to slit a man’s throat — more than one.’
Evelyne snapped that more than one boy had raped Rawnie, and turned to go back into her bedroom. Hugh caught her arm. ‘Tell me how you know so much, miss? Why you had the papers, why you showed your fist to your father in front of the whole village?’
Evelyne pulled her arm free and pushed past him, back into her bedroom snapping that he’d no need to
