After Hours by Jenny Oldfield Page A

working on supply lorries that travelled between the Belgian coast and the front line. Like many uneducated men, the war had at least given him a trade. Otherwise, it only served to reinforce his rebellious spirit.
    He had one sergeant-major who treated him like dirt; Richie got the worst billets, the most dangerous tasks in a battle of wills to see if he would crack. But it came to a bad end. The sergeant-major had sent Richie over the top on reconnaissance once too often. He and the other men had stayed put in the trench until they heard a hail of enemy fire. But the sergeant left his own strategic retreat a second too late. A shell had landed in the trench over Richie’s head, leaving the sergeant-major hanging on the old barbed wire. Later, Richie would sing that wartime favourite with vicious enjoyment.
    Rob wore a dark moustache, just like that sergeant-major. Hisupright bearing gave him a military air. He was the type who never showed a soft side. His temper was always ready to flare and he didn’t like to be crossed.
    â€˜Look, I ain’t gonna take none of your cheek, you bleeding idiot.’ Rob jumped down Richie’s throat. ‘Sadie’s spoken for. Why can’t you get that into your thick head?’ He got ready for his third lunge, this time raising the heavy brass phone, holding it like a dub. The wire wrenched from its socket and dangled uselessly.
    Over his head, beyond the glass partition, Richie spotted the rapid approach of Rob’s eldest sister, Frances. He lowered the belt and unwound it from his fist. Instinctively Rob dropped his own guard. ‘You heard me,’ he warned. ‘You leave her alone.’
    Richie turned away and took his jacket without a reply. But the set of his shoulders spoke defiance. ‘Try and make me,’ he suggested. It was in the angle of his cap, in his curt nod at Frances as she came in. He loped off across the cinder yard.
    Frances Wray, as she now was, had spoken earlier on the phone to Hettie. She’d set off for the Duke as soon as she could, hoping to catch her sister before she left for the Mission. Hettie’s tone had been uncharacteristically downbeat. Though she’d been quick to deny that anything was amiss, Frances had decided to leave work and pay her a visit.
    Since Rob’s depot was on her way and it was raining hard, Frances thought she might ask Rob for a rare favour and catch a lift to the Duke. Now she shook out her black umbrella and closed it, glad to find someone in. ‘Cheer up, it might never happen,’ she told Rob. His face was like thunder.
    â€˜It already did.’
    Frances glanced after the retreating figure of Richie Palmer. ‘Well, anyhow, run me up home to the Duke, there’s a good chap. I need to see Hettie and I’m afraid I’ve left it late,’ Frances sighed. ‘Why do customers always have to come in at the last minute? You’d think they’d show more consideration. Don’t they know we have our own lives to lead?’ She’d been mixing pastes and making up pills until well after five o’clock.
    â€˜No, didn’t you know?’ Rob tilted his chin up and fixed his tie straight. He was beginning to recover from his argument with Richie. ‘You ain’t a human being. You’re a machine for peddling pills and potions, that’s all.’
    â€˜Ta very much, Rob.’ By now they’d climbed into his cab and backed out of the yard on to the dark street. Frances sat quietly in the passenger seat, listening to the swish of the tyres through the puddles. In her feather-trimmed hat and fawn, tailored outfit, she looked quietly respectable as always. ‘Ett didn’t sound her usual self,’ she commented, separated from the familiar sights of Duke Street by the steamy windscreen. ‘She ain’t mentioned nothing to you, has she, Rob?’
    He came to a halt outside the pub. ‘There was something, but she