Read Online All Fall Down by Jenny Oldfield - Free Book Online

Richie Palmer without going to Sadie and asking her first. That wouldn’t be right, see?’ She was scrupulous. She saw rumour and gossip as dangerous weapons.
    Meggie bit her lip. ‘I might as well ask her straight out myself.’
    â€˜You might,’ her aunt said gently, insistently.
    â€˜If you ask me she’s round the bleeding twist.’ Rob switched off the radio with a violent snap. These days he and Walter had to hang around a lot in their Meredith Court depot, waiting for the phone to ring. Walter had just dropped the bombshell news that Sadie was out with Meggie, combing the streets to find Richie Palmer.
    â€˜What can I do?’
    â€˜Put your foot down, that’s what.’ He wouldn’t have stood any such nonsense from Amy.
    â€˜It ain’t that easy, Rob.’ Walter was on his way to check the sandbagging around the entrance to the Nelson Gardens shelter. He reached for his tin hat and got ready to go.
    Rob flicked his cigarette to the floor and ground it underfoot. ‘You mean to say they’re out looking for him right this minute?’ For a second he was speechless. ‘And you let them? I don’t knowwhy you didn’t just take your taxi and drive them round, get it over and done with.’
    â€˜Look, I ain’t saying I like what’s going on—’
    â€˜Like it? I should bleeding well hope not.’ He worked himself up. ‘And what’s gonna happen if they do find him?’
    â€˜They won’t, don’t you worry.’ Walter tightened his helmet strap under his chin, ready to step out into the raw, cold night.
    â€˜Says you. If you ask me, we should’ve nailed him before now, right at the start when we found out his little game.’
    â€˜Don’t drag it up, Rob. It won’t do no good.’ He felt suddenly weary.
    â€˜It ain’t me dragging it up. It’s Meggie, ain’t it? And Sadie. She’s gone soft in the head if she thinks Palmer will welcome his kid with open arms.’
    Walter shrugged. ‘No need to rub it in.’
    â€˜Sorry. But that’s what I mean, she ain’t taken you into account, has she?’ Rob’s old hatred of Richie Palmer had risen up and grabbed him by the throat. ‘After what he tried to do to you.’
    â€˜She does think of me. She don’t sleep at night for thinking of me, and Meggie, and the boys. She’s worn to a shadow thinking of others. Don’t suppose it’s easy for Sadie; it ain’t.’ She’d agonized for weeks after Meggie had come in one night and announced that she wanted to find her real pa. ‘Coping with the war’s bad enough, without any of this on top.’
    â€˜And didn’t Meggie think of that before she opened her big mouth?’
    Walter sighed. ‘Don’t go on, Rob. I just mentioned it in case they do manage to track him down. I didn’t want it dropping on you out of the blue.’ The truth was, he’d happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when the so-called accident happened fifteen years earlier. Richie had messed about with the taxi’s brakes in an effort to get back at Rob, not him. If Walter hadn’t taken the cab out on the off-chance, it would have been Rob who’d ended up under the wheels of the tram. ‘Meggie don’t know every little thing that went on. Sadie’s kept it quiet all these years. Allshe knows is, her pa ran off. Now she says she wants to meet up with him before it’s too late.’
    â€˜Too late for what? Maybe someone should tell the kid the whole truth.’ Rob lit up another cigarette.
    â€˜No.’ Walter stopped in the doorway. ‘Don’t do that.’
    â€˜Why not?’
    â€˜Sadie still don’t want her to know.’ It wasn’t nice to find out your pa had tried to kill your uncle and got your stepdad by mistake.
    Rob shook his head, diving for the ringing phone across the